Byron's Memoirs

Byron gave the manuscript of his memoirs to Thomas Moore in 1819, with instructions that it could be published after his death. Moore, in financial difficulty, sold the manuscript to Byron's publisher John Murray for 2,000 guineas, with the right to buy it back. Several people read the manuscript, including Moore himself, Mary Shelley, and the Countess of Blessington. Their reactions varied: some found it candid but not especially scandalous; others were shocked. When Byron died at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824 fighting for Greek independence, news reached London on 14 May. Within three days, a fraught meeting took place in Murray's drawing room. Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh and her representative Colonel Francis Doyle, along with Byron's friend John Cam Hobhouse, insisted on destruction. Moore argued passionately for preservation. The publisher Murray and his son tore the pages and fed them into the fireplace. The burning was one of the most notorious acts of literary destruction in English history. Moore later wrote his own biography of Byron (1830), drawing on his memory of the memoirs, but scholars believe his account was heavily sanitised. The likely contents — frank discussion of Byron's bisexuality, his relationship with Augusta, and his view of English society — would have been the most revealing self-portrait of any Romantic writer.