Byron's Works. Volumes 1 to 12.

Brown leather spine with gilt banding, decoration and title. Blue marbled boards. A fine collection.

Byron wrote political poems such as Song for the Luddites (1816) and The Landlords' Interest, Canto XIV of The Age of Bronze. Examples of poems in which he attacked his political opponents include Wellington: The Best of the Cut-Throats (1819) and The Intellectual Eunuch Castlereagh (1818). Byron wrote prolifically.] In 1832 his publisher, John Murray, released the complete works in 14 duodecimo volumes, including a life by Thomas Moore. Subsequent editions were released in 17 volumes, first published a year later, in 1833. An extensive collection of his works, including early editions and annotated manuscripts, is held within the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Don Juan[ Byron's magnum opus, Don Juan, a poem spanning 17 cantos, ranks as one of the most important long poems published in England since John Milton's Paradise Lost. Byron published the first two cantos anonymously in 1819 after disputes with his regular publisher over the shocking nature of the poetry. By this time, he had been a famous poet for seven years, and when he self-published the beginning cantos, they were well received in some quarters. The poem was then released volume by volume through his regular publishing house. By 1822, cautious acceptance by the public had turned to outrage, and Byron's publisher refused to continue to publish the work. In Canto III of Don Juan, Byron expresses his detestation for poets such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In letters to Francis Hodgson, Byron referred to Wordsworth as "Turdsworth". Irish Avatar[ Byron wrote the satirical pamphlet Irish Avatar after the royal visit by King George IV to Ireland. Byron criticised the attitudes displayed by the Irish people towards the Crown, an institution he perceived as oppressing them, and was dismayed by the positive reception George IV received during his visit. In the pamphlet, Byron lambasted Irish unionists and voiced muted support towards nationalistic sentiments in Ireland.

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), simply known as Lord Byron, was an English poet and peer. One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, Byron is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. He remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular. He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa. During his stay in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted after the First and Second Siege of Missolonghi. His only marital child, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as a foundational figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Byron's extramarital children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh, daughter of his half-sister Augusta Leigh. Augusta Maria Leigh (née Byron; 26 January 1783 – 12 October 1851) was the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron, the poet Lord Byron's father, by his first wife, Amelia, née Darcy (Lady Conyers in her own right and the divorced wife of Francis, Marquis of Carmarthen). Augusta later married her cousin, Lt. Colonel George Leigh (1771–1850), son of General Charles Leigh (1748–1815) and his wife, Frances Byron, her paternal aunt. The couple had seven children: Georgiana Augusta, Augusta Charlotte, George Henry, Elizabeth Medora, Frederick George, Amelia Marianne, and Henry Francis. Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, noted the wedding with disdain in his diary: "Poor Augusta Leigh marries today! Poor thing! I pity her connecting herself with such a Family and such a fool! However, she has nobody to blame but herself." The marriage turned out unhappily because he fell into dissolution and gambled away all his money. In the end, he left his wife and children nothing but debts. Augusta's half-brother, George Lord Byron, did not meet her until he went to Harrow School, and even then only very rarely. From 1804 onward, however, she wrote to him regularly and became his confidante, especially in his quarrels with his mother. Their correspondence ceased for two years after Byron had gone abroad and was not resumed until she sent him a letter expressing her sympathy on the death of his mother, Catherine in 1811. Not having been brought up together, they were almost like strangers to each other. But they got on well together and appear to have fallen in love with each other. When Byron's marriage collapsed and he sailed away from England never to return, rumours of incest, a very serious and scandalous offence, were rife. There is some evidence to support the incest accusation. Augusta Leigh's third daughter, born in spring of 1814, was christened Elizabeth Medora Leigh. A few days after the birth, Byron went to his sister's house Swynford Paddocks in Cambridgeshire to see the child, and wrote, in a letter to his confidante, Lady Melbourne: "Oh! but it is 'worth while', I can't tell you why, and it is not an "Ape", and if it is, that must be my fault; however, I will positively reform. You must however allow that it is utterly impossible I can ever be half so well liked else-where, and I have been all my life trying to make someone love me and never got the sort I preferred before." "Ape" alludes to the fear that the child would be born deformed. One of Augusta's daughters, Georgiana, married a cousin, Henry Trevanion in 1826, apparently at her mother's instigation; they had three daughters. Trevanion, who may also have had a relationship with Augusta herself, left Georgiana in 1829–30 for her younger sister Elizabeth Medora, who had been staying with them; Medora and Trevanion lived together for several years in France, before finally separating in the 1840s, Medora going on to marry a French soldier. Note: FBA has a number of French & Italian watercolours for sale which are attributed to Augusta Maria Leigh (née Byron) painted it is said during her relationship with Byron.