miranda seymour

their late friend’s ‘honor & fame’. Th e incineration ceremony took place in Murray’s drawing room, right under Byron’s Romanised nose.

On 17 April, the British Library is hosting a talk. Antonia Fraser and I will be having a ‘fi reside chat’ about the subject of her latest book, Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit . I f , t h a t i s , w e c a n s u c c e e d i n k e e p - ing Lord Byron at bay. April being the month of the bicentenary of Byron’s death, Lamb’s celebrated lover will be doing his utmost to hijack proceedings. History suggests that he may well triumph.

Poet for Our Time

Fiona MacCarthy (in my view, Byron’s best biographer) wasn’t wrong when she called him ‘a public exhibitionist ’. Nobody – not even Beyoncé, currently rediscovering her Texan roots in her new incarnation as a country and western singer – has surpassed Byron’s savvy use of image.

Fast-forward a century to Kyiv, during Stalin’s early years in power. Th ere and then, the problems for a memoir writer lay in simply getting published at all – unless the author chose to tell lies. I’m currently writing a biography of the amazing Princess Vera Giedroyc, a fearless battlefi eld surgeon and cross-dressing revolutionary who worked both as a factory doctor and – less willingly – for the Romanovs before setting up home with her aristocratic female partner in Kyiv in the 1920s. Frequently arrested without warning, Vera was invariably released because important party members needed her innovative surgical skills.

Part of the trick lay in the fact that Byron and his publisher never missed a chance to marry the strikingly handsome poet ’s image to Byron’s work. Was it Byron’s idea, or was it John Murray’s, that Th omas Phillips, a close friend of the canny Scottish publisher, should produce, almost simultaneously, two carefully contrasted paintings of London’s new superstar? One (head and shoulders only) presented a moody, bare-necked thinker. Byron, always happy to show off his creamy throat, asked Phillips to render his nose more Roman and less retroussé. In 1814, that open-shirted portrait went on display at the Royal Academy alongside Phillips’s second, more fl amboyant depiction of the author. Grandly titled Portrait of a Nobleman in the Dress of an Albanian , i t w a s s n a p p e d up by the proud mother of Byron’s future wife and put on show in her country home. Murray bought the other work and gave it pride of place directly above the fi replace in his Albemarle Street drawing room. A copy hangs there still.

Vera Giedroyc’s vivid and exceptionally appealing memoirs were published in the early 1930s. Th ey are virtually unknown in the West and almost unobtainable today in Russia. Indeed, the wonder is that they ever appeared at all. Th e princess’s criticisms of Stalin’s regime were indirect – she employed images of wolf packs, star vation and animal slaughter to launch her attacks – but these covert assaults aren’t hard to spot. Talking with various experts in Russian histor y, I’ve begun to realise how many such memoirs must have been quietly cancelled at a time when dissident poets and writers dared to share their works only orally through prodigious feats of memory. It ’s strange to say, but at least burning Byron’s memoirs in front of a group of witnesses guaranteed them a place in literar y histor y. Th e majority of works by Vera’s Russian contemporaries have vanished without trace.

And Caroline? Phillips painted the future Lord Melbourne’s slender wife as a boyish page in the act of presenting a luscious bowl of fruits. He placed this daringly suggestive portrait between the two images of Byron in his studio, which was regularly visited by the London ‘ton’ (the posh set in Regency times). Even Caroline, no stranger to self-promotion, felt uncomfortable. But whom do you suppose she fi rst turned to for help when she wanted Phillips to move the embarrassing portrait out of view? None other than Byron’s publisher, described by MacCarthy as ‘something of a father fi gure’ to her. Murray, it seems clear, was closely involved not only in both the Phillips commissions, but also in that knowing juxtaposition of the handsome poet and his besotted lover. (Anyone wishing to learn more about the way Murray exploited Byron’s private life in order to maximise sales should read Christine Kenyon-Jones’s Jane Austen and Lord Byron: Regency Relations.)

Byron’s vision of himself as a freedom fi ghter feels prescient today. He could not have imagined, back in 1814, how wonderfully Phillips’s second portrait would resonate with his fi nal and possibly favourite role: as a warrior ready to lay down his life in the noble cause of Greece’s independence. What is it about Byron – the man, not the currently rather neglected poet – that makes him feel so right for whatever times we fi nd ourselves in?

Murray supported the decision taken in May 1824 by Byron’s increasingly prim executor John Cam Hobhouse to destroy his unpublished and potentially racy memoirs in order to protect

There’s no statue in Russia today – I wish there were – to honour Vera Giedroyc, a true hero for her times and for ours. Hobhouse and Byron’s widow, possibly regretting their part in the destruction of Byron’s memoirs, tried their best to get a life-size commemorative statue of him placed in West- minster Abbey. Th at project was rejected. It wasn’t until 1880 that a statue – sculpted by the little-known Richard Belt and set upon a handsome plinth contributed by a grateful Greek govern- ment – was erected in his memory. Disraeli, one of Byron’s most ardent fans, championed the cause. Unfortunately, the statue – placed in what at the time was Hamilton Gardens, close to Byron’s former Piccadilly home – was marooned thanks to the construction of a dual carriageway along Park Lane. Today, you might just glimpse poor, dusty Byron – if you’re quick about it – from the top of a passing bus.

Anniversaries can serve a useful purpose. Th e Royal Parks have identifi ed a splendid new site for Byron’s statue in Hyde Park, but funds are urgently needed to help cover the cost of repairs and relocation. Writing as a keen supporter of the rescue mission, I hope readers will spread the news that the Byron Society has set up a JustGiving page to raise money for the cause. Today, Byron the promiscuous, dandy poet has been recast in the role he most valued, as a champion of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom from oppression, freedom from invasion. Worthy of a statue in a place of honour? In these times? I should say so.

april 2024 | Literary Review

1