Lord Byron
Lord Byron is the greatest writer in English literature you've never read.
In his own day he was as well-known as the late Queen or Jackie Kennedy in ours. Much of his fame rested on what contemporaries thought of as Byron's liking for same-sex and other varieties of forbidden romance. This risk taking made his books sell. His romantic life may have been unusual, but its appeal was thrilling and universal.
Byron is daunting to read because we seldom have patience for long verse poems. But when Byron is abbreviated, and when the connections between his lines and his own life story are highlighted, Byron becomes as fresh as if he lived right beside us, instead of 200 years ago.
Byron's biography can shine a direct spotlight on your life story too. The disappointments he felt in love, as well as the personal transformation he achieved in writing will strike a chord with anyone who is a reader, a writer, or a lover.
My new nonfiction biography of Byron, tentatively titled Swimming with Byron: A Biography for Right Now, will be available for preorder soon. It should be on sale by April 2024, the 200th anniversary of Byron's death.
I've commissioned brief cellphone videos of people reading some of Byron's memorable lines. Take at look at them on my YouTube Channel.