GEORGE GORDON BYRON was born 22 January 1788 and he inherited the
barony in 1798. He went to school in Dulwich, and then in 1801 to
Harrow. In 1805 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, later
gaining a reputation in London for his startling good looks and
extravagant behaviour. His first collec-tion of poems, Hours of
Idleness (1807), was not well received, but with the publication of
the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) he became
famous overnight and increased this fame with a series of wildly
popular 'Eastern Tales'. In 1815 he married the heiress Annabella
Milbanke, but they were separated after a year. Byron shocked
society by the rumoured relationship with his half-sister, Augusta,
and in 1816 he left England for ever. He eventually settled in
Italy, where he lived for some time with Teresa, Contessa
Guiccioli. He supported Italian revolutionary movements and in 1823
he left for Greece to fight in its struggle for independence, but
he contracted a fever an
