George Gordon Byron, the sixth Baron Byron, was Regency England’s quintessential playboy. A talented poet and writer, he left a legacy that has endured through the years, and the term “Byronic hero” remains in use. Commonly referred to as Lord Byron, the man was a leading figure in Britain’s period of romanticism and would go on to live and die by those idealistic romantic beliefs on April 19, 1824, fighting in the Greek Wars of Independence.
Byron was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1788. His father died when he was three years old, and he would go on to inherit the title of Lord after his uncle’s death in 1798. During his childhood and into his adolescence, he sawvarious medical professionals seeking to correct his club foot, a congenital condition which turned one of his feet inward, forcing him to walk on the side of it. Today, healthcare professionals can correct this condition with nonsurgical methods and a minor procedure, but in Byron’s day it was a significant source of mental and physical anguish.
Byron would go on to study at Trinity College in Cambridge, but most of his time wasn’t spent hitting the books. Instead, he pursued passionate relationships with both men and women and accumulated debts. The first few publications of his work, “Hours of Idleness” and “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” were not well-received by critics, and it wasn’t until after completing his master’s degree and traveling across the Mediterranean that he became acclaimed for his work. “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” was a collection of poems based on his travels that helped earn him fame.
After returning to England for some time, Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke, an intelligent young woman with a talent for mathematics. In a letter to her aunt, Byron would actually call her his “Princess of Parallelograms.” Their marriage was turbulent and affected by Byron’s gambling debts. Soon after the birth of her daughter, Lady Byron sought a legal separation on the grounds of cruelty and the incestual relations Byron had with his half-sister Augusta. Their daughter, Ada Lovelace, was a mathematical prodigy and would go on to be remembered as the first computer programmer.
After the couple’s separation, Byron left England for Geneva, Switzerland, to escape further scandal. It was in Switzerland that he spent time with Percy and Mary Shelly and would suggest that everyone write ghost stories, which eventually lead to the writing and publication of “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.”
From Switzerland, he traveled to Italy, where he had an affair with Countess Teresa Guiccioli. Afterward, he reached Greece, where he valiantly supported the rebellion against the Ottoman Turks. It was here that he financially supported the Greek Army and fought as a soldier. Byron fell ill while training with troops in the cold and died of a fever shortly after.