Exiled from England and Journeys with Friends, 1816
Geneva & Venice
Exiled from England and Journeys with Friends 1816
Byron's domestic life was in ruin. With the additional pressure from his creditors he left England for good. His journey took him through Belgium up the Rhine river. In the summer he settled at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, Switzerland. There he was joined by his personal physician, John William Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin, and Claire Clairmont. The rain was incessant that June, and the group was forced to stay inside for three days. They turned to reading stories such as Fantasmagoriana. They took to writing their own stories of horror, ghosts, and fantasy. Most famously, Mary Godwin wrote Frankenstein, of The Modern Prometheus. John William Polidori produced The Vampyre, which Byron later took inspiration from for his story, "A Fragment"
Byron wintered in Venice that year and became acquinted with Armenian culture. His fascination grew and many credit him with the birth of Armenology.
"Lord Byron shaking the dust of England from his shoes." Byron Society Collection.
With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.
Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!
And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
My Native Land—Good Night!
Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: A Romaunt, Canto the First, XIII.
“Byron chose for the epigraph for the 1812 edition title page a passage from Le Cosmopolite, ou, le Citoyen du Monde (1753), by Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron, in the original French. Translated into English, the quote emphasizes how the travels have resulted in a greater appreciation of his own country:”
“The universe is a kind of book of which one has read only the first page when one has seen only one's own country. I have leafed through a large enough number, which I have found equally bad. This examination was not at all fruitless for me. I hated my country. All the impertinences of the different peoples among whom I have lived have reconciled me to her. If I had not drawn any other benefit from my travels than that, I would regret neither the expense nor the fatigue.”
Lord Byron. Selected Poems. London: Penguin Books, 1996.
The Siege of Corinth
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron. The Siege of Corinth. A Poem. and Parisina. A Poem. London: Printed for John Murray, 1816.
Rare Book Collection.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto the Third
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Third. London,: Printed for J. Murray by W. Bulmer, 1816.
Byron Society Collection.
The Prisoner of Chillon
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron. The Prisoner of Chillon, and Other Poems. London: Printed for John Murray, 1816.
Rare Book Collection.
Poems, A Fragment
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron. Poems. Printed by John Murray, by W. Bulmer and Co., 1816.
Rare Book Collection.
Parian Portrait Bust of Lord Byron
The Vampyre: A Tale
Polidori, John William. The Vampyre: A Tale. London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1819.
Byron Society Collection.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein. Everyman’s Library. London [and] New York: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd [and] E.P. Dutton & Co., 1900.
Byron Society Collection.
Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;
Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam;
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam,
Were unto him companionship; they spake
A mutual language, clearer than the tome
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake
For nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.
Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt, Canto the Third, XIII.