Byron. Life and Legend.

First edition. Large 8vo. Pp. xiv, 674, frontis. portrait, col. & b/w plates; with notes, sources & index. Chocolate brown paper-covered boards, lettered in gilt to spine; burnt sienna endpapers.

Bound back to front and upside-down with pp. 453/6 loose, excised title page, and small closed nick to upper fold of dust jacket, hence the modest price.

The first biography of Byron to originate from John Murray, Byron's own publisher, since Leslie Marchand's three-volume biography, published in 1957. Drawing on Murray's world-famous archive, MacCarthy brings a fresh eye to Byron's tempestuous life and art from his formative years in Scotland, to his travels in the Mediterranean and relationships with adolescents – a subject brushed over in earlier biographies. "[A] thoroughly researched and well-written biography." –Dinitia Smith, New York Times