Letters and Journals

The ninth volume in Leslie Marchand's highly acclaimed, unexpurgated edition of Byron's letters finds the poet in Pisa with Teresa Guiccioli. His unique journal "Detached Thoughts" is finished shortly after his arrival in November 1821, and he is drawn into Shelley's circle (including Edward Williams, Thomas Medwin, John Taaffe, and later Trelawny). His letters to Mary Shelley, the Hunts, and Trelawny after the death of Shelley are especially moving. Another tragedy, the death of his daughter Allegra, leaves him deeply affected, and he refers to it time and time again. Money problems continue to plague him, as do suspicions surrounding his political activities. Following a fracas with a half-drunken dragoon and the imprisonment of two of his servants because of it, Byron is forced to leave Pisa and install himself and Teresa in a villa near Leghorn. His correspondence with his publisher reveals increasing displeasure with Murray's delays, indecision, and anxiety over "Don Juan," and Byron finally breaks off the relationship. But his output of verse is in no way lessened, and by the end of this volume in 1822, he has finished six more cantos for "Don Juan" as well as other poems.