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Lead book review

Excess and incest were meat and drink to the Byrons

Excess, incest and marital misery were in the blood. Frances Wilson uncovers several generations of infamous Byrons

11 April 2020

9:00 AM

11 April 2020

9:00 AM

The Fall of the House of Byron: Scandal and Seduction in Georgian England Emily Brand

John Murray, pp.352, 25

‘Some curse hangs over me and mine,’ wrote Lord Byron, and thanks to Emily Brand, who is a genealogist, it is now possible to see why Byron was so darned Byronic: excess, incest and marital misery flowed in the bloodstream. The gloom that looked like a Regency pose was entirely pre-programmed; George Gordon Byron’s script was handed to him at birth.

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