Known commonly as Lord Byron, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron was born in 1788 in London and was a leading figure in the Romantic movement.

Byron was flamboyant and lived life to excess. He himself said,

“I am such a strange mélangé of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me.” (Marchand, Leslie, Byron: A Life, Alfred A. Knopf, 1957, p. 7)

Byron travelled extensively, and spent seven years living  in Italy and then moved on to Greece. He was regarded as a Greek national hero, having joined in the Greek War of Independence.  He died in Missolonghi, Greece in 1824 aged 36.

Read a selection of Byron’s poetry