The Corsair by Lord Byron is published
On this day in 1814 Lord Byrons The Corsair is published and sells some 10000 copies on its first day in print.The poem was one of several gloomy works he produced at a time when he was engaged in several ill-fated love affairs.Byron was born in Aberdeen Scotland in 1788 and was raised in poverty.Burdened with a clubfoot Byron later forbid anyone to mention his condition.
At age 10 he inherited his great uncles title and became Lord Byron.He attended Harrow then Trinity College Cambridge where he ran up enormous debts.His first published volume of poetry Hours of Idleness (1807) was savaged by critics especially in Scotland and his second published work English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809) attacked the British literary establishment.After taking his masters degree in 1809 he traveled in Portugal Spain and the Near East for two years.
His wanderings inspired his poetic work Childe Harolds Pilgrimage (1812) which won him almost instant acclaim in England.As he said at the time (I) awoke one morning and found myself famous.His poetry manners fashion and tastes were widely imitated.In 1815 he married Anne Isabella Milbanke and the couple had a daughter August Ada the following year.
Ada proved to be a mathematical prodigy and is considered by some to be the first computer programmer thanks to her work on Charles Babbages computing machine.The marriage quickly foundered and the couple legally separated.By this time scandal had broken out over Byrons suspected incest with his half-sister Augusta Leigh.He was ostracized from society and forced to flee England in 1816.
He settled in Geneva near Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.There he became intimately involved with Marys half-sister Claire Clairmont who bore his daughter Allegra in January 1817.Byron moved to Venice that same year and began a period of debauchery.In 1819 he entered an affair with the Countess Teresa Guiccioli the young wife of an elderly count and the two remained attached for many years.
Byron always an avid proponent of liberal causes and national independence supported the Greek war for independence.He joined the cause in Greece training troops in the town of Missolonghi where he died just after his 36th birthday.
