FALL OF THE HOUSE OF BYRON (PB)

The shocking and outlandish story of three generations of the Byron family begins in rural Nottinghamshire and plays out in the gentleman's clubs of Georgian London, amid tempests on far-flung seas, and in the glamour of pre-revolutionary France. In 1798, a small, pudgy boy of ten inherited the crumbling ruin Newstead Abbey, along with a handful of servants and a thriving population of crickets. George Gordon's forbears had become known for almost unfathomable levels of scandal and impropriety, from elopement, murder, and kidnapping to adultery, coercion and thrilling near-death experiences at sea. This book reveals the myths that rose around them, which would shape their most famous scion's life and poetry for posterity.