Unearthly Children

BYRON: THE YEARS OF FAME--Peter Quennell--Viking ($3.50). THE ROMANTIC REBELS--Frances Winwar--Little, Brown ($3.50). In July 1811, Byron returned to England from the Near East. He was 23, bored, cynical, a voluptuary who declared he had "drained life to the very dregs." Heavily in debt, he dreaded his reunion with his fat, tactless mother who had taunted him about his lameness; he was oppressed by thoughts of living in Newstead, the chill, half-ruined manor that was haunted with memories of the crimes of his wild ancestors. He carried with him the manuscript of Childe Harold but expected nothing from that poem. On Aug. 1, his mother died. Next day one of his dearest friends was drowned. On Aug. 12, in the depths of despondency, he composed his "outrageous" will that carried its explicit provision for the "disposal of his carcass." He slept in an enormous bed decorated with Oriental splendor, kept four skulls by his writing desk, limped moodily about his dilapidated estate, plunged into dissipation with old school friends and pretty country girls. Six months later he made his first speech in the House of Lords, saw Childe Harold published, awoke one morning to find himself famed. The story of George Gordon Byron's next four years is one of the most fantastic in the history of English literature. Last week it was retold in two capable volumes, both of which gave evidence of the extraordinary thoroughness with which Byron's perplexing life has been studied. Although Peter Quennell's 320-page biography is limited to the years between 1811-1816, the climax of Frances Winwar's longer and more inclusive The Romantic Rebels comes with her record of the same period. The Romantic Rebels explores the interwoven lives of Byron, Keats, Shelley, gives an impression of diffuseness in comparison with Peter Quennell's vivid portrait. Even readers thoroughly familiar with the Byron legend are likely to find Byron: The Years of Fame absorbing reading, both for the sprightliness of Peter Quennell's prose and for his occasional daring insights. The Romantic Rebels places Byron's life in perspective with the astonishing careers of Keats and Shelley, paints the three poets and their wives and many mistresses as unearthly children of genius whose love affairs, political activities and financial squabbles are like charming and pathetic parodies of a humdrum adult world. Both books devote much attention to the social background. At the time of Byron's fame, England was ruled by the fat, "superbly filthy" Prince of Wales, later George IV, who was known to have burst into tears when Beau Brummell criticized his clothing, and whose greatest achievement was his construction of the pleasure resort at Brighton (TIME, Aug. 19). Since George III was locked up as a madman, the prestige of royalty had never been so low. When machinery was introduced, workers rioted, smashing frames and power looms that put them out of work. Byron's first speech was a violent denunciation of early manufacturers who demanded the death penalty for frame-smashers, won him a popularity that the success of Childe Harold soon turned into fame. In this same period Shelley, wild-eyed, long-haired, was startling the swells by tossing his incoherent republican pamphlets into their carriages. Byron's tragi-comedy began when Lady Caroline Lamb, capricious, thin, dark-eyed daughter of Lady Bessborough, fell in love with him. Although a great many noble ladies felt the same passion, "Lady Caro," who was also affectionately called "Ariel," "Savage," & "Squirrel," outdid them all. She disguised herself as a page in order to get into Byron's rooms, waited in the street while he attended parties to which she had not been invited, tried to stab herself when he spoke crossly to her, forged his handwriting to get his picture from his publisher. Driven to distraction by her, Byron found companionship with her mother-in-law, Lady Melbourne, brilliant, cynical woman of 62, who gave him detailed advice on how to pursue charmers, was not shocked until he confessed his incestuous love for his sister. Byron also had a happier love affair with Lady Oxford, who was almost twice his age.

The root of Peter Quennell's analysis is that Byron was bisexual, a theory not developed in Frances Winwar's less minute study. Apparently with careful design, Byron began spreading stories about himself when his fortunes were highest. He even confided in scatter-brained Lady Caroline, after she had become his virulent enemy. Prevented from publicly proclaiming his love for his sister, he married, choosing as his wife a prim, exact intellectual whom he did not love and whose highbrow affectations amused him and his friends. He took his bride to his sister's home, tormenting her with crazy half-disclosures, while his sister avoided him, incredible rumors spread, and the whole household trembled on the verge of insanity or suicide.

Byron: The Years of Fame ends with Byron's disgrace and exile, makes the poet seem almost a weary old man by that time. The Romantic Rebels, on the other hand, makes it clear that the experiences of Keats and Shelley were only a little less sensational, that most of the figures in the smoky dramas of genius were scarcely mature. Byron was 26 at the time of his disgrace. His sister was 33, Lady Caroline 31, his wife only 24. Shelley was 22 when he abandoned his 19-year-old bride, fled to France with two girls, aged 16 and 17.

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