Byron

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Born the lame son of 'Mad Jack' Byron in 1788, brought up in the back streets of Aberdeen by an impoverished mother, plagued at an early age by the financial difficulties of his estate, George Gordon, 8th Lord Byron had few of the advantages of his class. Yet by the age of twenty-five he was a celebrated poet, lionised by London society, feted by all for his romantic good looks and rapier wit. But enchantment quickly turned to outrage as the establishment learnt of Byron's private life - his alleged incest with his half-sister Augusta, his tempestuous affair with Caroline Lamb, his insensitive treatment of his blue-stocking wife Annabella Milbanke. Hounded from London, Byron found refuge on the Continent, writing some of his best poetry in the Swiss mountains and among the decaying splendours of Venice. Until, at the age of thirty-six, he espoused the noble cause of Greek liberation to die among the swamps of Missolonghi - a romantic in life and death and one of England's greatest poets.