A Novel by Richard Deakin
Published 22nd January 2019 to mark the anniversary of Byron’s birth
Early copies available now
The Wicked Lord Byron
- a Novel by Richard Deakin
"Deakin's novel sticks close to the official chronology... At his droll best, the author seems to be really enjoying himself" - The Times Literary Supplement
The Wicked Lord Byron
On his deathbed, the two halves of Byron’s personality – laughing Dandy and tragic Romantic – separate and relive the legendary life with all the intensity of the original experience. At the age of twenty-one Byron sets out on a Grand Tour of the Mediterranean and returns with a poem and lifestyle which makes him more famous than any man of his time except Napoleon.
Now the toast of London society, the revolutionary aristocrat becomes involved in a series of wild love affairs which includes his half-sister Augusta. But after an ill-judged marriage and a bitter separation the resultant scandals exile him from the high society he once dominated and forces him to flee abroad.
After a period of debauchery in Venice, he falls in love with an Italian countess and joins in the revolution for Italian independence from Austria. Brokenhearted after the death of his brother poet Shelley, he is drawn to one final revolution: the fight for Greek independence from the Turks.
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Kensington
From the Foreword by the current Lord Byron
When Richard Deakin first asked me to read this book, I confessed to him that I was apprehensive;
I am not generally a fan of fictional versions of Byron’s life. In the event, I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed it. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes moving, it has the great merit of sticking closely to the known facts whilst imagining what can only be imagined.
After a beguiling magic realist opening which suggests what we all might experience on our deathbed – a conflict between different aspects of our character – the novel morphs into a vivid recreation of the life of the Poet Lord Byron. It’s a life which has long held a fascination for students of English literature, for biographers, for film makers and for writers of fiction. Not surprising, perhaps, as the Byron story is hard to beat.
A ten-year-old boy from Aberdeen inherits an old English title and comes south with his mother to find his inheritance to be an ancient abbey – magnificent but crumbling and decayed. Writing poetry from an early age, he has a tempestuous adolescence, falls in love with both sexes, and at the age of twenty-one sets out on a grand tour of the Eastern Mediterranean. Two years later he returns with a poem which – when published – catapults him to instant fame.
Both as poet and personality, Byron was one of the most famous men of his age. Identifying himself with Napoleon, and conscious of his own celebrity status, he seems to have lived his life as if he was forging an epic story that he knew would be told long after his death.
More than any other English poet, Byron wrote from experience: “as to Don Juan,” he said about his poetic masterpiece, “it may be bawdy – but is it not good English – it may be profligate – but is it not life, is it not the thing? – Could any man have written it – who has not lived in the world? – and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? – in a Gondola? - against a wall? - in a court carriage? - in a vis à vis – on a table? - and under it?”
Based on this well documented story, Richard Deakin has created a highly original and entertaining work of fiction, with a host of colourful characters including the dandy’s dandy Scrope Davies, the piratical Trelawney and the wild and tragic poet Shelley. Byron would surely have been amused.
Robin
13th Lord Byron
President, The Byron Society
London, England, 2018
SELECTIONS FROM THE WICKED LORD BYRON
Blog "Isn't it Byronic"
ISN"T IT BYRONIC brings Lord Byron back from the dead to castigate modern times in ottava rima
Available from good bookshops such as:
HATCHARDS
Piccadilly
DAUNT BOOKS,
Marylebone
WATERSTONES
High St. Kensington
WATERSTONES
Kings Road
LRB BOOKSHOP
Bloomsbury
DULWICH BOOKS
West Dulwich
LUTYENS AND RUBINSTEIN
Kensington
HEYWOOD HILL
Mayfair
FOYLES
Charing Cross Road
Available from online bookstores:
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The Author
RICHARD DEAKIN grew up in Wales and was educated as an undergraduate in the UK and as a postgraduate in the USA. He has a history of writing biographical drama about literary legends such as Kerouac, Kafka, and Poe, with plays staged in London, Paris and New York.
ANGELS STILL FALLING, his bioplay of Jack Kerouac, was critically acclaimed in the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement (“the audience dispersed on a palpable high…”) and other journals, was Critic’s Choice in TIME OUT (“superlative play…utterly compelling…”) and is currently in development as a film.
Contact details
Twitter: @wickedlordbyron
Facebook: facebook.com/TheWickedLordByron
© The Wicked Lord Byron, 2018 all rights reserved.