sign in sign up
<<
Home , Byron (play), John Clare, Lady Caroline Lamb, Leigh Hunt

CHRONOLOGY

1778 John elopes with Amelia b.; Voltaire d.; D’Arcy, Marchioness Carmarthen. Rousseau d. 1779 John Byron marries Marchioness b.; John Galt b.; Carmarthen. David Garrick d. 1780 Gordon Riots. 1781 British surrender at Yorktown; Schiller’s Die Rauber¨ ; Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). 1782 Laclos, Liaisons Dangereuses; James Watt patents his double-acting steam engine. 1783 Birth of Augusta Byron, daughter of Peace of Versailles; The Paris Peace John Byron and Amelia D’Arcy. Treaty; Britain recognises United States of America; b.; Crabbe’s The Village; Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloon flights in Paris. 1784 Lady Carmarthen dies. b.; Samuel Johnson d.; Diderot d.; Wesley establishes Methodism.

xi chronology

1785 John Byron marries Catherine b.; Thomas Gordon (13 May). Love Peacock b.; b. 1786 John Cam Hobhouse b.; , Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect; Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. 1787 Signing of the American Constitution; Schiller’s Don Carlos; Mozart’s Don Giovanni. 1788 George Gordon Byron, son of John Kant’s Kritik der praktischen Byron and Catherine Gordon, born Venunft (Critique of Practical on 22 January, at 16 Holles Street, Reason); first published. Cavendish Square, . Christened, 29 February, in Marylebone parish church. 1789 First colony established in Australia; Fall of the Bastille, 14 July; the beginning of the French Revolution; George Washington becomes first President of United States; Edmund Kean b.; ’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. 1790 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; Adam Smith, author of Wealth of Nations (1776), d. 1791 Death of Byron’s father, John Mozart d. Byron.

xii chronology

1792 Percy Shelley b.; Samuel Rogers’ Pleasures of Memory, with Other Poems; Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women; Tom Paine escapes to France whilst British government prepares for his treason trial. 1793 Louis XVI executed; b.; Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. 1794 Death of William Byron makes Edward Gibbon d.; Gifford’s George Gordon heir to title and Baviad; Godwin’s Caleb Williams; estates. Enters Aberdeen Grammar Southey’s Fall of Robespierre; School. Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho. 1795 b.; b.; James Boswell d.; ’s Book of Los; Book of Ahania and Song of Los; Southey’s Joan of Arc; John Murray, Byron’s future publisher, succeeds to his father’s business. 1796 Robert Burns d.; Coleridge’s Poems on Various Subjects. 1797 b.; Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Shelley) b.; Mary Wollstonecraft d.; Horace Walpole d. 1798 Inherits title, of Lyrical Ballads published Newstead and Rochdale and moves anonymously; Malthus’s on to Newstead Abbey, the Principle of Population;the Nottinghamshire. Irish rebellion.

xiii chronology

1799 Byron travels to London. His club Thomas Jefferson becomes second foot is examined by Dr Baillie and President of the United States; coup Dr Laurie. Byron enters Dr d’etat in France sees Napoleon seize Glennie’s school in Dulwich. power. 1800 Second edition of Lyrical Ballads published with Wordsworth’s preface; Haydn’s The Seasons; Alessandro Volta describes the voltaic ‘pile’ to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. 1801 Byron enters Harrow. Peace of Amiens; William Pitt resigns as Prime Minister; the Act of Union with Ireland receives royal assent; invention of the steam-powered locomotive. 1802 War between Britain and France ends. 1803 Byron’s mother moves into Burgage After Napoleon breaks peace treaty, Manor, Southwell. In October, Britain declares war on France; US Byron begins his unrequited pays $15 million to France for the idealised love for his cousin, Mary Louisiana Territory. Chaworth. 1804 In Southwell, meets Elizabeth Pigot; Sir , Lay of the Last returns to Harrow and takes part in Minstrel; Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell. the Speech Day. 1805 Byron takes part in Harrow’s Napoleon proclaimed king of . Speech Day. In Harrow cricket team Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson dies at for their match in London, Trafalgar; Beethoven’s Eroica 2 August. Byron arrives at Trinity symphony first performed; Joseph College, Cambridge. Turner’s The Shipwreck.

xiv chronology

1806 Fugitive Pieces published. John Stuart Mill b.; publication of Bowles’s edition of Pope. 1807 Poems on Various Occasions William Pitt d.; The Abolition Bill is published, January. Keeps tame passed, outlawing the slave trade; bear at Cambridge; joins Crabb’s The Parish Register; Cambridge Whig club; returns to Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies; London, July; Byron’s review of Mme De Stael’s¨ Corinne; first Wordsworth’s Poems in Monthly gas-lights in streets of London. Literary Recreations; published. 1808 Received his MA from Cambridge; Start of the Peninsular War; the receives scathing criticism from the United States bans the import of Edinburgh Review. slaves; Convention of Cintra signed; Leigh Hunt founds The Examiner; Goethe’s Faust (Pt. i); Goya’s Execution of the Citizens of Madrid. 1809 Takes seat in House of Lords; Charles Darwin b.; Alfred Tennyson anonymous publication of English b.; Thomas Paine d. Bards and Scotch Reviewers; Byron leaves Falmouth on the Princess Elizabeth to begin his first tour of Portugal, Spain, Malta, Albania and Greece. Reception by Ali Pasha. Byron finishes the first canto of Childe Harold 1810 Completes Childe Harold Canto ii. Baillie’s Family Legend; Hogg’s On 16 April, Byron attempts to Forest Minstrel, Goethe’s Pandora; swim across the Hellespont but fails H. von Kleist’s Kathchen¨ von because of cold weather and strong Heilbronn. currents. Successfully swims the Hellespont, 3 May.

xv chronology

1811 Moved by hearing of the death of Shelley expelled from Oxford, John Edleston, Byron writes poems marries Harriet Westbrook; the addressed to ‘Thyzra’. Hears Prince of Wales becomes Regent; Coleridge lecture. Death, on Austen’s Sense and Sensibility; 1 August, of Byron’s mother, Luddite riots. Catherine Gordon. He writes ‘Hints from Horace’ and The Curse of Minerva. 1812 Maiden speech in the House of b.; Charles Lords. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Dickens b.; Prime Minister, Spencer Cantos i and ii published. In Perceval, assassinated in the lobby March, he meets Lady Caroline of the House of Commons. US Lamb with whom he begins a declares war on Great Britain; three-month affair. On 12 March, Beethoven meets Goethe; Napoleon writes letter to Walter Scott invades Russia apologising for English Bards. Writes The Waltz.‘Parenthetical Address, by Dr. Plagiary’ printed in the Morning Chronicle. 1813 Lionised by London society; Hobhouse’s A Journey Through politically active in Whig cause; Albania and Other Provinces of Byron attends dinner at Lady Turkey in Europe and Asia to Jersey’s and meets Madame de Constantinople; Austen’s Pride and Stael;¨ speaks in the House of Lords; Prejudice; becomes possible affair with half-sister, poet laureate; Leigh Hunt Augusta; publications of The imprisoned. Giaour, and . 1814 Publication of and Napoleon abdicates; Scott’s Lara. 10,000 copies of The Corsair Waverley. sold in a day. Byron admires Edmund Kean’s performance in Richard III.

xvi chronology

1815 Byron marries Annabella Milbanke Riots in London against the Corn on 2 January. Birth, 10 December, Law; restored Bourbon monarchy of daughter, Ada. Publication of in France under Louis XVIII; , containing many Napoleon escapes Elba; British of Byron’s best-known lyrics. victory at Waterloo. 1816 Separation of Byron and Annabella. Richard Sheridan d.; marriage of Publication of The Prisonar of Shelley and Mary Godwin; Shelley’s Chillan, The Siege of Corinth and Alastor; anonymous publication of . Byron’s books are sold in a Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon; public auction for a total of £723 Southey’s Poet’s Pilgrimage to 12s 6d. Byron leaves England for Waterloo; Leigh Hunt’s The Story last time. Visits the fields of of Rimini; Jane Austen’s Emma; Waterloo. Byron and Shelley sail Walter Scott’s Old Mortality; around the northern shore of Lake Goethe’s Italienische Reise; Geneva. Spends the summer with Schubert’s Symphonies nos. 4–5. the Shelleys in Switzerland. Views Voltaire’s chateauˆ with ‘Monk’ Lewis. Moves in October to Milan and meets Italian revolutionary circle. Moves in November to Venice. Completes Canto iii of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Childe Harold Canto iii published. 1817 Claire Claremont (’s Jane Austen d.; Keats’ Poems;the half-sister) gives birth to Byron’s 21-year-old Princess Charlotte dies illegitimate daughter, Allegra; in childbirth; Coleridge’s publication of ; Newstead Biographia Literaria; Heman’s Abbey sold to Thomas Wildman for Modern Greece; Scott’s Rob £94,500; visits Rome and Childe Roy; Monroe becomes President Harold Canto iv written. of USA; Blackwood’s Magazine founded.

xvii chronology

1818 Mainly in or near Venice. Sends Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Percy Murray manuscript of . Shelley’s and Revolt of Beppo is published. First meets Islam; ’s Teresa Guiccioli. Lady Melbourne Nightmare Abbey; Hazlitt’s dies. Childe Harold Canto iv Lectures on the English Poets; published. Byron wins swimming Keats’s ; Caspar David contest against Mengaldo. Begins Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea . of Fog; attack on Keats in . 1819 Begins affair with Countess Teresa Wordsworth’s and The Guiccioli. Writes the Prophecy of Waggoner; Shelley’s Masque of Dante; leaves Venice for Ravenna; Anarchy; the Peterloo massacre in arrives in Ravenna; is which 11 are killed and over 500 published with the Ode on Venice. injured; US purchases Florida from Don Juan Cantos i and ii published Spain. anonymously by John Murray. Accompanies Thomas Moore to Venice. Gives Moore his memoirs. 1820 Moves to Ravenna; Teresa Guiccioli George III dies; George IV separates from her husband; Byron proclaimed king; Shelley’s The sends Murray Cantos iii and iv of Cenci; Keats’s , Isabella, and Don Juan; Pope grants Teresa ; Shelley’s Prometheus Guiccioli separation; Byron begins Unbound published; Scott’s Canto v of Don Juan. Ivanhoe; Venus de Milo discovered on Greek island of Melos.

xviii chronology

1821 Byron follows Teresa Guiccioli’s Napoleon d.; Keats d. (aged 25); exiled family to Pisa; Byron begins Queen Caroline d.; Baillie’s Metrical his ‘Ravenna Journal’; Marino Legends; Hazlitt’s Table Talk; Faliero published 21 April; writes Southey’s A Vision of Judgement; , , Michael Faraday demonstrates and , all of which are published electro-magnetic rotation; Greek in a single volume on 19 December; War of Independence begins. writes The Blues; writes ; begins Heaven and Earth. 1822 September, Byron moves with the Shelley publishes Hellas; Shelley Gambas to ; daughter, drowns off the coast of , Allegra, dies in convent at Italy; Robert Stewart, Viscount Bagnacavallo; Byron begins Canto Castlereagh, commits suicide; xi of Don Juan; Vision of Judgment Heine’s Gedichte. and Werner published; begins to write Age of Bronze. 1823 Byron sails for Greece, July; arrives Ann Radcliffe d.; Carlyle’s Life of in Cephalonia on 3 August; Heaven Schiller; Lamartine, Nouvelles and Earth, Age of Bronze, and The Meditations´ ; Hazlitt’s Liber Amoris Island published. and Characteristics; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. 1824 Byron arrives in Missolonghi, James Hogg’s Confessions of a Greece on 5 January; develops Justified Sinner; ’s fever; dies, aged 36,on19 April; Journal of Conversations with Lord public attend Byron’s lying in state, Byron; Scott’s Redgauntlet; 10 and 11 July; buried at Hucknall Southey’s Book of the Church. Church, England, 16 July. 1825 Dallas’s Correspondence of Lord Byron; Moore’s Life of Sheridan and Evenings in Greece; Hazlitt’s Spirit of the Age; John Quincy Adams becomes President of the USA; opening of the Stockton and Darlington railway in England. xix