"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. A Romannt", by Lord Byron, published by Appleton, Philadelphia and New York, Philadelphia in 1847, First Appleton Edition, probably second US edition

Original decorative gilt hard cover and spine (wear: see scan), inscription on the front endpaper; 298 pages + publisher's catalog, 4" x 6", engraved frontispiece; small brownish age spots throughout, a little wear, good++ condition.

Includes all four Cantos, Preface to the First and Second Cantos dated 1813, Notes.

After his Grand Tour, visiting Spain, Malta, Albania, Greece and the Aegean, Byron returned to write "a great many stanzas in Spenser's measure" relating his own life to the countries he visited. This was published as CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE on 10th March 1812. It was immediately successful, selling out in three days and running into many editions, with Byron later writing two further Cantos. As he put it himself, Byron woke up one morning and found himself famous. His reputation was soon destroyed by scandal, by his brief marriage and by his love affairs with Lady Caroline Lamb, who noted in her diary that he was "mad, bad and dangerous to know", and with his own half-sister, Augusta Leigh. After formally separating from his wife, within days of the birth of their daughter, Byron left England in April 1816 never to return. The third Canto was written in Rome and published on 16th November 1816 and the fourth Canto was published on 28th April 1818. "The effect was ..electric, his fame..seemed to spring, like the palace of a fairy king, in a night."-Moore. A fifth edition was issued later in the same year. "Just turned twenty-four he found himself famous, a great poet, a rising statesman. Society, which in spite of his rank had neglected him, was now at his feet."

George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron (1788-1824), --Byron (no one ever called him George) was born on 22 January 1788, in London. His parents, Catherine Gordon Byron (of the old and violent line of Scottish Gordons) and John Byron, had been hiding in France from their creditors, but Catherine wanted their child born in England, so he was. John stayed in France, living in his sister's house, and died in 1791, possibly a suicide. Catherine took her son to Scotland, where a deformity of his foot soon became evident. Special boots were made and treatments devised, but Byron limped all of his life.

When the Wicked Lord died, Byron became, at the tender age of ten, the sixth Lord Byron. Newstead, the ancestral home in England, was an absolute wreck, so Byron's mother moved them to nearby Nottingham. They were very poor.---In June 1809, Byron and his friends John Cam Hobhouse and William Fletcher set off on a European tour which ended up as a tour of the Middle East. They eventually found themselves in Albania, where Byron was very well received by Ali, the Pacha of Yanina, a ruler renowned for his cruelty...

It was around this time that Byron began work on Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which he would work on off and on for the next eight years... Eventually, he returned to England..--But, at the insistence of a friend, the first two Cantos of Childe Harold were published in February 1812, and Byron became an overnight sensation. Women everywhere were throwing themselves at him, in some cases almost literally...1816 in April, Hobhouse, Fletcher, and Byron set out for Europe once again, this time with Dr. John Polidori also along.

In May, the group met Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin (later Shelley), ..Shelley and Byron hit it off extremely well. They travelled everywhere together, finally ending up in Italy, and Byron decided that this was the place for him. While there, he finished up Childe Harold, wrote Manfred, and started on Don Juan, though his health was poor.. Byron took Teresa, Countess Guicioli, as his mistress in 1819, and it was quite the scandal...

He got involved with local politics in 1820, joining the Italian freedom fighters working for democracy, though nothing really effective ever came of his plans. In 1822, Shelley drowned when his boat capsized,..The following year, Byron became involved in the Greek fight for independence from Turkey. (Ironically, Ali Pasha, whom Byron had so admired, had been one of the Turkish oppressors of Greece.)

Byron sailed for Greece at great risk and expense, even though he was convinced he was sailing towards his own death. He joined forces with a Greek prince named Mavrocordato and financed a navy for the freedom fighters. Byron found himself reluctantly in command of everything, as the Greeks tended to fight amongst themselves too much...In February of 1824, he had an epileptic seizure. Two months later, he was caught in a sudden storm while horseback riding, and he caught a chill from which he never recovered. He died on 19 April 1824.

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