Books in British Library Writers' Lives Series series

Described by a contemporary as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Byron has been haunted by his infamous reputation for over 200 years. This readable and lively biography of the poet examines his chaotic life story, full of contradictions--an aristocrat with republican views, a proponent of romantic love notorious for his casual relationships, a religious agnostic who admired Roman Catholicism. His work was sensational from the start; his first poetry collection was withdrawn from circulation because it contained explicit references to his romantic conquests. He traveled through Europe on horseback, and on his return to London published a poem--Childe Harold's Pilgrimage--based on his experiences abroad. The poem was a bestseller, which established Lord Byron's reputation as one of England's most talented poets and Romanticism's most recognizable symbol. Other successful poems followed, such as Don Juan and Bride of Abydos. Byron's scandalous love affairs made him a celebrity, but also forced him to spend more and more time away from England. He lived in Italy and Greece and actively participated in the revolutionary movements in both countries. He died in Greece from fever just as his soldiers were preparing to attack a Turkish position. About the series: The British Library is in a unique position when it comes to biographical research, especially concerning British authors. This revered institution boasts the world's largest collection of original manuscripts, as well as an outstanding collection of letters, personal diaries, first editions, and other literary treasures. The titles in this series take full advantage of this vast source of documentary evidence by illustrating each of these lively writers' biographies with state-of-the-art facsimiles of pertinent documents and reproductions of art from the period. Penned by expert biographers, each of these books also contains an index, further reading list, and a chronology of the writer's life.

Largely self-educated, Emily Bronte (1818-1848) was her father's favorite daughter and spent most of her life at the rectory in Haworth, on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. She lead a protected, uneventful existence, with almost no social contacts. Robert Barnard examines her insulated childhood, peculiarities, social boorishness, and aversion to relationships. He includes excerpts of Emily's lyrical poems of her twenties which presage the raw intensity of Wuthering Heights. Many aspects of her only novel are shaped by her own experiences, and the author traces the real-life counterparts of characters, landscape, and buildings. He draws extensively from critical sources varying from early reviews of Wuthering Heights to Gaskell's appraisal of Emily's "stern selfishness," to Juliet Barker's recent biography of the Bronte family.

Jane Austen is now one of the most popular novelists in the English language, and yet on the face of it one of the most unlikely candidates for such a title. Austen died at the age of 41 and left behind only six completed novels. Yet her works have never been out of print, and in this century, within the last three decades in particular, never a year passes without some fresh adaptation of her stories for stage, screen, or television. In this skillfully crafted biography, Deirdre Le Faye brings Austen's tantalizingly elusive image into a distinct and refreshing light.

The story of one of the important Romantic poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge follows the life of Samuel Coleridge from his days as a poverty-stricken scholarship student to the publication of the opus Biographia Literaria. Seamus Perry looks at Coleridges friendship with Robert Southey; his fortuitous meeting with William Wordsworth and their work on Lyrical Ballads, which sparked the Romantic movement; and his numerous careers, which included governmental secretary and sometimes spy (in Malta), journalist in London, and writer of plays, poetry, philosophy, literary criticism, political analysis, theology, and translations. Samuel Taylor Coleridge includes drawings, paintings, and original manuscripts that illustrate this brilliant writers prolific and troubled life.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning captures the remarkable love story of the renowned poets behind these famous words, from their dramatic elopement in 1846 to Elizabeth's tragic death in 1861. Their romance began with a letter from Robert admiring Elizabeth's highly acclaimed book, Poems. When her father disapproved, they married in secret and boldly moved to Florence, Italy. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning describes how their love and lives flourished there, producing one son, writing some of their most renowned works, and maintaining friendships with some of the most prominent literati of their time, including John Ruskin, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray.

English novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) remains one of the most fascinating and enigmatic writers of this century. The daughter of Leslie Stephen, editor of Oxford's own Dictionary of National Biography, she was educated privately and married critic and journalist Leonard Woolf. Together they founded the Hogarth Press and were at the center of the Bloomsbury circle, which included Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Vita Sackville-West, and many other notable intellectuals, all of whom appear frequently in the narrative. Webb deftly puts into this context Woolf's large and varied literary output--diaries, letters, journalism, essays, short stories, and novels--as well as her constant battles with mental illness that culminated in her suicide by drowning. Woolf's writing, especially Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One's Own, and her diaries, are favorites of high school students and adults of all ages. About the series: The British Library is in a unique position when it comes to biographical research, especially concerning British authors. This revered institution boasts the world's largest collection of original manuscripts, as well as an outstanding collection of letters, personal diaries, first editions, and other literary treasures. The titles in this series take full advantage of this vast source of documentary evidence by illustrating each of these lively writers' biographies with state-of-the-art facsimiles of pertinent documents and reproductions of art from the period. Penned by expert biographers, each of these books also contains an index, further reading list, and a chronology of the writer's life.

Charlotte Bronte won great fame with her semi-autobiographical novels Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, and The Professor. Her life story is almost as well-known as the history of her most popular herione, from her bereaved yet extraordinarily creative childhood in a bleak Yorkshire parsonage to her early death just months into a happy marriage to her father's curate. Few writers have had the facts of their lives so inextricably linked with the fiction they wrote. This book, written by an acknowledged expert on the Brontes and beautifully illustrated throughout, provides a fluent, objective and compassionate account of the life of a much loved genius of English literature.

John Keats is one of the best-loved, admired, and most frequently studied Romantic poets, though he wrote only three volumes of poetry in his short life. This extraordinary biography looks at how Keats developed as a poet against the backdrop of the major events of his life. John Keats follows the poet through intense family ties and friendships, a medical apprenticeship and subsequent decision to pursue poetry, participation in the literary circles of London, travels within Britain, illness, and finally, death from tuberculosis at age 25. A vivid and authoritative introduction to Keats's remarkable life, John Keats is filled with photographs of landscapes and cityscapes from his life, portraits of the poet and his family, evocative paintings, and manuscripts of his works and letters.

Poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was the leader of the Romantic movement in British literature. He was strongly influenced by the ideology of the French Revolution and by the landscape of Britain's Lake Country, where he lived for most of his life. Among his most famous poems are "Tintern Abbey" (published in Lyrical Ballads, which he wrote with his friend and colleague Samuel Taylor Coleridge), "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," "The Solitary Reaper," "Daffodils," and numerous sonnets. Wordsworth's poetry is a staple of the U.S. high school English curriculum, and his home, Dove Cottage, is a much-visited tourist site in Britain's Lake District. About the series: The British Library is in a unique position when it comes to biographical research, especially concerning British authors. This revered institution boasts the world's largest collection of original manuscripts, as well as an outstanding collection of letters, personal diaries, first editions, and other literary treasures. The titles in this series take full advantage of this vast source of documentary evidence by illustrating each of these lively writers' biographies with state-of-the-art facsimiles of pertinent documents and reproductions of art from the period. Penned by expert biographers, each of these books also contains an index, further reading list, and a chronology of the writer's life.

Mary Shelley traces the unusual life of the author of one of the most famous and terrifying novels of all time, Frankenstein. Martin Garrett looks at Mary Shelley's unconventional early life as the daughter of the free-thinking feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died soon after Shelley's birth, and the radical philosopher William Godwin, her elopement with Percy Bysshe Shelley and his encouragement of her writing, and her life after Percy's death. With prominent literary figures such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and Lord Byron appearing throughout, Mary Shelley features photographs, paintings, journal entries, and manuscripts that help re-create the life of an extraordinary woman

Charles Dickens (1812-70) is probably Britain's best-known and well-loved author. His novels such as Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol and Hard Times have provided generations of readers with a unique insight into the realities of nineteenth-century Victorian society, and his own colourful and turbulent life helped to shape some of his most vibrant scenes and famous characters. His impoverished childhood - dogged by his father's debts and imprisonment in London - and years as a parliamentary journalist and legal clerk, brought Dickens first-hand experience of city life, enabling him to expose its realities, injustices and hardships in works such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby. Father of ten children, Dickens struggled with an unhappy marriage, but worked prolifically throughout his lifetime to achieve fame and fortune from his writing and editing. He was often disillusioned with society and championed the welfare of the common man through social, education and housing reforms. His reading tours indulged his love of the stage and enabled him personally to reach his audiences, both in Britain and America. Illustrated throughout with letters, manuscripts, engravings and photographs, Elizabeth James's concise biography provides a clear and revealing portrait of a prolific, talented and highly esteemed literary genius.

Jane Austen is now one of the most popular novelists in the English language, and yet on the face of it one of the most unlikely candidates for such a title. Austen died at the age of 41 and left behind only six completed novels. Yet her works have never been out of print, and in this century, within the last three decades in particular, never a year passes without some fresh adaptation of her stories for stage, screen, or television. In this skillfully crafted biography, Deirdre Le Faye brings Austen's tantalizingly elusive image into a distinct and refreshing light.