You're Dead to Me - Lord Byron

Episode Date: October 18, 2019

Who was Lord Byron and why did he drive the girls (and many boys) so wild? Find out about this scandalous early celebrity who was described as, "mad, bad and dangerous to know". Greg Jenner is joined by comedian Ed Gamble and historian Dr Corin Throsby.This episode was produced by Dan Morelle and scripted and researched by Emma Nagouse.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for people who don't like history, or at least people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. In each episode we're joined by an expert historian

with a head full of facts and a top comedian with more lols than an emoji factory. I actually don't even know if that's a thing. Today we are taking a trip back to the early 19th century to Britain, dusting off our quill and parchment and we're penning a saucy love letter to one of history's most outrageous poets, and also an early celebrity. It is, of course, Lord Byron. As ever, I'm joined by two marvellous guests in History Corner. She is an expert on Byron's celebrity, especially all the naughty fan letters that he got from the ladies. She teaches at University of Cambridge. She's a BBC Radio New Generation thinker. It is Dr. Corinne Throsby. Hello, how are you? Oh, I'm very well. I love talking about Byron, so I'm very pleased to be here. she's a BBC Radio New Generation thinker it is Dr Corinne Throsby hello how are you? oh I'm very well I love talking about Byron

so I'm very pleased to be here well we're very glad to have you and in Comedy Corner he's a hilarious stand-up comedian he's a writer he's an actor I'm terrible at acting he's a terrible actor

yeah that'll do that's genuinely the way I'd like to be referred to thank you you'll have seen him on doing the funnies on Mock the Week live at the Apollo 8 out of 10 cats he's the co-host of the smash hit imaginary dining podcast off menu with the lovely james acaster it's blooming ed gamble hello hello you said you were gonna mess up that first go at the introduction and you nailed it well i mean i called you a terrible actor arguably

that's no no no you nailed it it's very kind of you i'm an awful actor i feel like i'm meant to flatter you so i'm gonna call you a mediocre actor thank you so much all right this is a history podcast ed how are you with history are you immediately panicking or are you thinking i've got this uh i'm not panicking and i don't think i've got this uh i don't know anything about history but i'm looking forward to learning hey i also have a habit and i consider it a skill that when i learn something i will then within a month immediately forget that thing it's sort of like an x-man who can just wipe his own memory it's not really a superpower that is it no he's very he doesn't get the best room at the

mansion what would his costume be just oh he does it it's different every day because he can't remember what he's got to put on. All right. Okay. And are you familiar at all with Lord Byron? I know. He's Naughty Boy. Yeah. And I'm yet to establish the link between him and burgers.

That's a powerful link. Yes. It's a powerful link. All right. So, what do you know? We begin the podcast with a so what do you know? This is where I guess what listeners at home might know about today's subject. And that is Lord Byron, or real name George Gordon Byron.

A fascinating man, often credited as being one of the first ever celebrities. I'm really into him because I've written a book about the history of celebrity and he's in there loads. In terms of pop culture, I mean, he's not been in a huge amount of stuff. I was looking around, he's popped up in Ricky Gervais' Extras. He's been in Wicked and the Divine comic book. There have been some fun movies about him in the 80s and 90s. I think there's one starring Hugh Grant. There's a different one starring Gabriel Byrne.

But he's not really had a movie about him for 30 years. He's slightly out of the conversation. But 200 years ago, he was a massive, massive deal. He was the notorious seducer, a provocateur, a tortured genius, a pouting beauty, a sports fan. He was infamously described by Caroline Lamb, his ex-lover, as mad, bad and dangerous to know. Yikes. But what else is there to know about him? Let's find out.

So, Corinne, Byron is born in 1788. He's not born a lord, but he is born to a kind of relatively posh family. Both of his parents were from well-to-do families. But his dad, who basically married his mum for her money, was a terrible scoundrel. He's like central casting, you know, Jane Austen style. He's like gambling the money away and, money away and going off with lots of women. And he's called Captain Jack. Captain Jack.

They call him Mad Jack Byron. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Good name, isn't it? That's great. If you knew someone called Mad Jack Byron, you'd be straight down the pub with them. Well, also, I wouldn't marry him.

If so, she's crazy. Going up and saying, hello, I'm Mad Jack Byron. Well, maybe one night of fun, but certainly not marriage material. Exactly. And he also had another wife, you know, previously and that hadn't gone well. So, you know, she it was a mistake. Did he have like a moustache that he twizzled? Very possibly.

But poor old Mad Jack wasn't actually on the scene for long because he died when Byron was only three years old, probably by suicide. So Byron was left being raised by a single mother and she was Scottish. And so even though Byron was born in London, they very soon went back up to Scotland and he grew up in Aberdeen. Are they living in a big old fancy house? No, it was actually they were relatively poor. And so Byron has always, you know, he's got this sort of funny thing that he became an aristocrat, but actually his beginnings were quite, quite humble. Oh, no wonder he's known for being pale if he lived in Aberdeen.

There's one hour of sunlight during the summer in Aberdeen. Between Aberdeen and going to Harrow, he inherited the Byron title. It's a bit of a rags to riches, except that his uncle also left loads and loads and loads of debt. So the massive family pile that he moved down into, which is in Nottingham, called Newstead Abbey, was actually sort of in disrepair and falling down. So, you know, it was exciting. It was a change of lifestyle, but he wasn't suddenly in the lap of luxury. It was like, hey, you're Lloyd Byron. Congratulations.

Here are all the things you have to pay for. Absolutely. And, you know, financial worries sort of plagued Byron his whole life. He lived this very excessive lifestyle, but was always a bit beyond his means. Age 10, he inherits the title. And then soon after that, he goes to Harrow. He has like a... 10. He was 10. 10, yeah.

And he was a lord. Suddenly a lord. I mean, could you imagine being 10, having your mates call you Lord? Lord Ed. I quite like it, actually. Yeah? Yeah. I'd love to have been a lord at 10. Lord Gamble? Lord Gamble, I reckon. Lord Gamble sounds great. That sounds like a like it, actually. Yeah? Yeah. I'd love to have been a lord at ten. Lord Gamble? Lord Gamble, I reckon.

Lord Gamble sounds great. That sounds like a betting website, doesn't it? It sounds like a mascot of like, hello. Sounds like it's based out of Hong Kong or somewhere dangerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not covered by laws. Two free rolls on the roulette wheel at lordgamble.com. So he's off to Harrow.

Fancy school. Does he have a lovely time or is he? Not at first. He has a terrible time at first. So he was actually born with a club foot. So he was lame and walked with a limp and wore an iron brace to help his foot when he was young. And so he was actually horribly bullied. He really learned to kind of throw some punches then and had a lifelong interest in boxing.

It's odd that he concentrated on the punching if he's got an iron leg brace. Surely kicking would be the best way to go. Take people out with one kick. But he got into Harrow after a while and made some great friends, possibly more than friends. His classmates are boys. Yeah. And he's possibly kissing the boys? Possibly. I mean, there's possibly kissing the boys? Possibly. I mean, there's always this kind of question of was Byron gay?

And it's a tricky one to answer because in those days, you know, someone's sexuality wasn't their identity in the same way that it is today. But he definitely had sort of sexual relationships with men during his life, we think. He never actually says it outright because you know in those days you couldn't but he had in his time loads of relationships with women um and had lots of sex with women and so i think in today's term we'd probably call him bisexual or pansexual pansexual hypersexual so he does have a bit of a love interest uh sort of 15 with a girl called mary uh chow? He had loads of crushes like that. I mean, really, kind of, yeah, she was one of many, kind of, lots of cousins, that was the way then,

and sort of neighbours. A bit weird. How many cousins are we talking? It was always cousins in those days in the aristocracy. But was he seeking the cousins out? Or is it just some cousins happened to cross his path i think it's more the latter right okay um you're very attractive but you're not my cousin next yeah they were um he wrote a lot of kind of

bad early poetry at that time sure you've done that yeah yeah lots of love poetry i mean all my poetry is bad i've got a whole notebook full of cousin love poetry cousin love poetry sounds like a sort of a whole genre yeah it does yeah i don't know like country music maybe let's say he goes to university he goes to cambridge where you teach so yes um presumably you've seen byron's vandalism. I don't know. Has he left Marx all over the college? Not quite.

But I still sometimes go and visit Byron's pool, which is near, because he was a great swimmer. Part of his thing with being lame was that he sort of compensated for that. He took the brace off, right? He took the brace off. He just sank straight to the bottom. I think by this stage the brace is gone. Yeah, okay. He took the brace off. He just sank straight to the bottom. I think by this stage the brace is gone. And yeah, he used to go with his friends to swim in a pool near Grand Chester,

Corbyron's Pool to this day. Okay. He also had a pet. Now, Ed, do you want to guess what that pet was? It needs to be something weird, otherwise you wouldn't have brought it up. And something that you could have laid your hands on 200 years ago sure a rat that's a very cute guess the real answer is a bear what a bear i wasn't even considering it yeah you went small i went small yeah he went byron he went

big well look i didn't go to cambridge but I'm fairly sure there are rules of what you can bring into halls. Yes, there are. And the rules were no dogs. Yes. And Byron loved his dog. And so the bear was kind of like this revenge against the master. He's like, well, if I can't have a dog. That's so funny.

How big was the bear? It was quite small. It was a small bear. It was a tamed bear from a circus that he sort of rescued from the circus. Paddington. He's basically got Paddington in his room. Oh, this guy's really cool, actually. I'm fully on board now.

But yes, he's also, I mean, he's meeting the ladies, meeting the fellas. Meeting the ladies, meeting the fellas. He had in Cambridge his sort of first, I guess, relationship with a man. A beautiful chorister called John Edelston. What would his Tinder profile be? Because, I mean, by the sounds of it, he was up for sex anytime, anyplace. Yeah, I mean, that would be his profile. Really?

Yeah. Anywhere, anyhow. Right. And would the portrait be him posing with a bear? Possibly. In his trunks. But really, it is this kind of funny thing where there were so many people. And different ages.

He was an equal opportunist when it came to age as well. He was really just open to anyone. Ed, have you heard of the Grand Tour? Yes. Good. We'll move on. Can you tell me what the grand tour is? Okay.

So when Jeremy Clarkson punched the producer, he got fired from the BBC. And then he got commissioned by Amazon to make, it's basically Top Gear, but on Amazon. I'm also a big fan of Amazon Prime. So it's basically sort of, and there is more of a chance to explore the longer form they could explore. Sure. And Byron's one of the presenters. And Byron was one of the

original presenters on that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is not the answer I was looking for, but I really enjoyed how far it was. It's an answer though, wasn't it? It was really beautifully,

very measured. Yeah. Big budget as well. Bigger budget than you get on the BBC. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to know what the grand tour was in the 1810s why not because it's a bit different okay i mean there's still travel yeah there's still budget there's not jeremy clarkson but there are men with stupid hair

absolutely yeah it was basically the grand tour was a thing that kind of young aristocratic dudes would go to europe to kind of better themselves after know, it was kind of this rite of passage. When you say better themselves, were they bettering themselves? Well, they were certainly exploring parts of themselves that they may not have otherwise explored. They were bettering themselves. Exploring parts of themselves and other people. Possibly. themselves. Exploring past themselves and other people.

Possibly. No, I think that there was generally this sense of, you know, you can learn from the ancient past and... And then they're going to look at art, they're going to Florence, they're going to Rome, they're going to look at Roman sculpture. They're driving a big car right across the desert. Yeah, they're racing

dragsters versus mopeds. I mean, the idea is it's a sort of cultural education yeah like usually um the grand tour was really focused on kind of france and italy um and uh byron was sort of pushed further east because napoleon owns both of those napoleon's like he's got france and italy and you can't just be a british bloke sort of swanning around going hello morning hello so yeah byron went he actually went as far as Albania. And there's a great portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery in London, wearing Albanian costume.

It's the most famous portrait of him, really, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, he really got into it. When he's out there, he's starting to write some poetry. There was, you know, the fact that he was going to places that people at home hadn't been to meant that when he wrote about those places people were fascinated and wanted to know more um and uh child harold hit this poem that really kind of launched his career uh was about a young nobleman who sort of like had enough of his life in britain and in the excesses of that and is traveling through Europe. And of course, people were like, hang on a minute.

That's basically you. It's a bit on the nose. Where did you get the inspiration? So it's called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Yes. And it's released in Cantos. Do you know what a Canto is, Ed? Absolutely not.

Do you want to guess? No. It's a long bit of a poem. It's a long bit. It's a long bit. It's a long bit of a poem. It's a long bit. It's a long bit. It's technical. Yeah, it came out in four cantos over a period of years. So he was releasing it.

It was like, you know, people got an appetite for it. And then he'd bring out the next volume. So it was like a series. It was like a series, exactly. And people would hang on for it in the same way they might hang on for, you know, the next Game of Thrones. So travel poetry is really a big thing. I mean, he's kind of he's hooked onto this genre of travel poetry, but he's also known as a romantic. And that doesn't mean that he buys people flowers before he kisses them.

It's a type of aesthetic philosophy, isn't it? This is so the first romantics were um wordsworth and coleridge they were the first generation and there was a second generation of byron and shelly and keats um and other people as well but they're the most famous ones um and yeah this was a movement came largely sort of out of the french revolution um that really put an emphasis on the human imagination um as being the sort of greatest force in the world. And it's all about our imaginative capabilities and the power of nature to take us out of an increasingly industrial world. And going on about feeling intense emotions, the sublime.

Yeah, absolutely. The power of the landscape to transport us. And it was also this idea of the great genius um the kind of poetic genius um that byron really can yeah it sounds like they'd get on my nerves a bit if i met them well was he the sort of bloke who'd get a guitar out at a party that is like shelly's getting the guitar out they were all up in the clouds and byron was very much down on earth would he smash the guitar up he that is exactly it great i like I like him again. Okay. We're back on board. So he's done a lot of travel. He's writing autobiographical stuff. He's had a lot of sexy, sexy bedroom adventures. That describes my first 10 years in comedy. Sure. I mean, all the sex, all the travel, all that. But there's the

travel certainly. Okay. The motorway service stations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says he goes to bed and he wakes up famous. Is that true? And how did that happen? Yeah, I mean, possibly it wasn't overnight, but he was a massive celebrity and his fame rose really quickly.

He published a few poems as an undergraduate and then he went away on what I guess we might call a gap year after university and he published a poem called Childe Harold and it was in this poem that he developed the character that he would use again and again which we now know of as the Byronic Hero which was the sort of pale good-looking brooding guy with a kind of dark past but kind of loves one woman only and uh yeah he used that character again i thought it sounded like russell brand russell brand definitely fancies himself as definitely he's modeling himself yeah absolutely absolutely so people started to think that the character that byron was writing about again and again was him.

And he sort of put just enough hints there to make people make the connection. But really, it was this sort of romanticised version of himself. OK, so that's what starts him off. That's what gets him really, really famous. He's 24 years old when he launches his career overnight, almost. When you say really, really famous, is that amongst everyone? Like who's like going out and buying the poetry or reading the poetry and being like, oh, have you seen this guy, this new banging poet? Yeah, well, it's really interesting. His career coincided with the advent of mass mechanised publishing. So everyone could read it.

Yeah, so it was being accessed by loads of people and also increases in literacy. So more and more people were being taught to read, particularly women. And there was this incredible appetite for new, cool stuff to read. He sort of hit the zeitgeist just at the perfect moment when there was this new audience of readers. This is sort of the upper class, the wealthy who are reading him to begin with, aren't they? To begin with, absolutely. It was wealthy, particularly women. And then as his career progressed and more kind of pirated copies of his poems started to circulate,

he was read by a much wider audience. So Byron is a big, big star. Is he wealthy or is he still actually quite poor? Like a little bit of both. Right. He kind of kept on getting money and then sort of losing money. But it's weird because you'd think that because he was such a best-selling author, I mean, he was selling famously his poem The Corsair, sold 10,000 copies on the first day.

Which is a crazy number of copies. Oh, that's insane. Because the population of London is what, 750,000? It's immense. The country's much smaller what, 750,000? It's immense. The country's much smaller. Yeah, so you'd think that he'd be super wealthy. But actually, there was still this kind of weird idea then that for an aristocrat, you didn't want to make money

in any kind of way. And so it was like, oh, I just write for fun. And then about halfway through his career was like oh actually actually yeah we'll take a bit of money there's still that feeling generally amongst anyone who works in the arts is that you're not allowed to say out loud that you're doing anything for financial gain it has to be yeah i just do it for the love man it's like i know how rich you are um and also he struggles with piracy doesn't he i mean there are there are people just nicking his books and printing them for like a penny there was that and then also people who were

just like hang on a minute i can make a bit of money here because byron's really popular yeah like you say it's just adding to his notoriety i guess yeah i mean it's feeding back in definitely he's not getting the money for it yeah so it's boosting his fame but not his bank balance no and i mean anyway it would have been his publisher's bank balance because in that time he would have just been paid a lump sum before he really based on sales. So he wasn't getting, so he sold 10,000 in the first day. That's not, he's not seeing any financial gain from that really.

No. Oh, wow. But that meant, you know, the more popular he got, the more he could then bargain. He sort of, you know, this is, and again, this is all later after he decides that actually he will make a bit. He sort of, you know, this is, and again, this is all later after he decides that actually he will make a bit of money from his, you know. Now you've mentioned fan fiction,

but we should get onto fandom, the thing that you are a specialist in. And it's fascinating, Ed, because we think of fandom as like Beatlemania and whatever. But Byron has like fans, properly committed fans. Do you want to guess what they were, what it's called, the movement is called?

Because you've got, you know, the monsters for Lady Gaga. You've got uh lizzo's got the lesbians you've got the mixes for little mix byron what do you think they're called uh byron maniacs hey is it right bang on yeah bang on his good name is a solid man yeah his wife coined the term um yeah yeah and the byron mania is not a new thing. There have been manias before. Sarah Siddons had a mania, but he is like crazy famous. And there are people who are really into him, aren't there? Is it a pun on pyromania?

It's not at the time, is it? I don't think. I think, I mean, for me, this one is the one that feels fascinating because you can see the letters. We've got so many letters and you've read them, haven't you? I have, yeah. can see the letters we've got so many letters and you've read them haven't you i have yeah he was really one of the first people to receive fan mail um on a kind of mass scale um it was mostly women who wrote to him and they felt this incredible kind of personal connection to him through his poetry they felt that byron was talking directly to them and directly about their personal experiences. They would write to him, usually anonymously, and they would tell him how much they loved his work and by extension loved him.

This is such a boring question, but where did they send the letters? Yeah, I mean, that is a great question. All over, a lot to his publisher. But he was famous enough in London that people knew where he lived. Right, I see. So, yeah. Knock on the front door.

I love you! Well, funnily enough, a lot of them didn't seem to actually really want to meet him, that they wrote to him anonymously. And so it was more about the act of writing. It was more like a personal thing for them that they wanted to kind of write out their own fantasies and didn't really mind that much. We've got an example and I'd get to read it. Absolutely.

Because you are a mediocre actor. How sexy is this going to be? Thank you. Oh, yes, please. Why did my breast with rapture glow? Thy talents to admire why as i read my bosom felt enthusiastic fire very nice i mean this is hot stuff at least to write a poem that gives a lady hot tits that's pretty good going hot tits is a great name for a band yeah i'm just saying um

so he's getting letters like that yeah from lots of women sometimes they're after they want to preserve him and protect him and and save his soul and sometimes they just fancy him well kind of both there was sort of this sense that you know this is a time when women didn't have much agency and um there certainly weren't that many female writers they're often written in like byronic style like in byronic verse and um expressing kind of fantasies that they wouldn't otherwise be able to express and you know they all almost all of them say i couldn't even imagine that i would ever write like this to someone that i didn't know and i've you know i i can't believe i'm doing this um is

that because like he was like like sexy like is it as simple as that or is there the reason he had loads of female fans or is there like a feminine quality to the way he writes there is that and he was amazing in his writing he did what i call really flirt with the reader his poems are filled with gaps they're like there are some poems that have just asterisks for lines and lines and lines as if a bit of the poem has been taken out. And this really charged readers' imagination because they were able to kind of fill in the gaps.

Byron's telling these poems, say, oh, that exactly described how I felt. And it's like they're kind of projecting their own thing onto his poetry. And his poetry was really good for that. Have you got fans out? I mean, you've really good for that. Have you got fans out? I mean, you've got loads of fans. Have they got a name?

Are they gamblers? No, there's no mania surrounding me, unfortunately. Hey, come on, give it time. I don't even like saying fans. I have people who enjoy my work, but I've certainly never set anyone's bosoms on fire. Not yet. No.

And also, the way to get in contact is Twitter and that's very public if you... Yeah, I mean... You can't really do that. Sure. You can DM also, the way to get in contact is Twitter, and that's very public if you can't really do that. Sure. You can DM you, I suppose, but that's always risky. No, my DMs are closed. Don't come anywhere near them. Okay, sorry.

Mine are open. But, I mean, in terms of the idea of people coming up to you after gigs and so on like that, do you ever get people come up and sort of open up to you and slightly taken aback? I know a lot of comedians do get people opening up to them after gigs and so on like that. Do you ever get people come up and sort of open up to you and slightly taken aback? I know a lot of comedians do get people like opening up to them in a certain way. But what I tend to talk about is so silly and offhand

that it doesn't tend to connect with people on that level unless they're like, well, yeah, I did a fart during a massage as well. And then it's sort of you're not getting too deep. And you go, ah, nice to meet you, bye, and get in the car. They also really like cheese. Yeah, yeah, exactly, ah, nice to meet you, bye, and get in the car. They also really like cheese. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Caroline Lamb is a huge fan who becomes a lover. She sends him something quite distinctive.

Do you want to guess what it is? Oh, so it's not just a letter. It's a letter with a little gift attached. Put a little gift in it. Oh, no. The thing is, I do want to guess guess but if I go wildly too rude Go rude, you're fine How rude?

Is it like clothing? No Is it hair? Yeah Is it pubes? Yeah Not only pubes but bloody pubes Caroline!

She sort of says in the note that she cut a little bit too close when she was removing the hair Well don't send that lot then Trim some more off of it. I mean, yeah. Caroline Lamb's wool. Oh! Yes.

That's why they play him the big ones. So she sends him this as a sort of gesture and does he go, thanks? Well, at this point they had been lovers and so that actually wasn't really a fan uh fan letter so much as this kind of scorned lover letter or kind of mid lover i think is that more acceptable or less acceptable in terms of it's weird to send someone pubes after you've already initiated a sexual relationship right ed i think that sending someone bloodied pubic hair is just never acceptable never

acceptable it's a bad opening gambit so at least they knew each other already exactly i mean i would argue it's worse if it's just from a stranger but yeah okay let's talk about his image interestingly he's one of the first people to use a portrait of himself in the kind of front of his poetry and so women were able to kind of look at the picture and then read the description in the poem and be like oh yeah i see you know what's going on oh yeah oh yeah um get me the scissors and his look his look was i guess kind of early goth he had um kind of very full pouty lips very high pale forehead a kind of quiff of uh dark hair and he started a fashion craze which was an open collar shirt um yeah it was kind of a little bit of neck a little bit of sort of clavicle a little bit of hair poking out the top weirdly now i look at it byron's look is a little bit

ed gamble i'll take it you're a handsome man look i'll take all these compliments but i'm not no i i have been a goth in the past but yeah i mean i've had the eyeliner phase yeah i did nail varnish yeah i did eyeliner but it wasn't i was more inspired by marilyn manson than lord byron but then marilyn manson surely inspired by lord byron i mean there's a rock star quality isn't there absolutely yeah oh yeah. Oh, yeah. And when he's young, he's beautiful, he's glamorous, he's gorgeous. But he has issues with his body image, doesn't he? Yeah, I mean, he actually had what I guess today we might call an eating disorder. Throughout his life, he was known to go on really quite extreme diets.

You know, for a while he only ate potato and vinegar and drank soda water. And he would, when he was younger, wear sort of really heavy clothing to kind of sweat out his weight and things. Maybe it went back to sort of his lameness and his self-consciousness about his body then. But yeah, he was very into kind of presenting this beautiful image.

So his look sounds quite sort of gothy, vampiric. What's the timeline with when people started writing about vampires dressing like that? At Gamble, you have literally hit the nail on the head. Have I? Yes, I love that. Do you want to tell us? Byron was the first person to really tell stories

about vampires in English. Because he travelled to Greece and they had a whole vampire myth going there. But the vampires were hairy, kind of gross little creatures. And he told this story about vampires to a group of friends, including Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. And Byron's doctor, a man called John Polidori, was there. And Polidori decided to write a novel about vampires.

But he decided to make the main vampire a beautiful, pale, pouting aristocrat. And it was that novel that then inspired Bram Stoker and sparked the vampire craze that we know today. So Buffy is due to Byron. Yes, you could say that. that oh that's really cool and indeed angel and buffy is like super byronic but yeah so he told the story of the vampires but made them look like him essentially yeah it's difficult to know whether byron told the story of the kind of aristocratic vampire or whether that was kind of polidori's take based on what byron based on what byron had said and um that novel was like a huge

hit and everyone thought that it was by byron when it first came out and byron was super pissed off at polidori yeah um for what he felt was sort of plagiarizing and stealing his name um and uh poor polidori ended up um killing himself um now this was in 1816 was it in geneva it was yes in switzerland now this is a very very famous night because that is not the most famous book to come out of that conversation. In that room is also Mary Shelley. And she comes up with Frankenstein that night. The same night? Same night.

Same night. Yeah, it's so cool. It was the coldest, wettest summer on record. There'd been a volcano, hadn't there? Yeah, a volcano had erupted the year before in Indonesia and had created this crazy weather pattern that meant that it was incredibly dark and cold. And so this group of incredible writers were all stuck together in the house and Byron was like, why don't we tell a ghost story?

And Mary Shelley told Frankenstein and he told a vampire story. Oh, that's so cool. And Wes Craven was there and that's where they came up with Freddy Krueger. Yeah, that's it. Same night. Amazing when you think about it. He has a relationship with a woman called Annabella Milbank. It doesn't last very long.

I mean, Ed, do you want to guess how long the relationship, I mean, the marriage lasts? Two months. It's not that far off, is it? It's not that far off. It was a real disaster. He just wasn't really made for marriage. She was a really sort of prim... She was kind of cool.

She was very intellectual. She's a maths nerd, isn't she? Yeah, Byron called her the princess of parallelograms. Hey! Even that's cool. Yeah, yeah. And there was something, there's something kind of, you know, looking back, it's just all about the sort of artistic imagination. And there was something, there's something kind of, you know, looking back that is just all about the sort of artistic imagination.

And she was super rational. And they just didn't, it didn't work. And they have a daughter. Do you want to guess who, and the daughter's very famous. You might have heard of her, but do you want to guess who the daughter might be? Isosceles Byron. Oh, my God. I'm literally going to go home and I'm going to like just name whatever I see.

Isosceles. That's the best name. No, I don't know who. Ada Lovelace. You ever heard of Ada Lovelace that's the best no i don't know who ada lovelace you ever heard of ada lovelace i have but i don't know why she invented computer programming yes so she works uh in the 1840s uh working alongside a very famous sort of engineer um called babbage and he came up with the first computer and she was the first person to work out the possibilities of what computers could do. That's amazing. So she is like super important in the history of computing.

Wow. She is the daughter of Lord Byron. That's pretty cool. But didn't get to know her daddy really. Not at all. He left the country pretty soon after she was born. And he was always, he sort of continued to write about her and think about her a lot, but sadly never got to see her grow up.

Is that because he's been too dangerous and sexy and naughty? Basically, yes. The marriage completely falls apart. There's rumors that he was having an affair with his half-sister, a woman called Augusta. All the signs were there from the cousin love poetry. Yeah, he didn't grow up with her. Not that that makes it okay um but uh yeah he was basically surrounded by scandal and everyone thought it was best for

him to go back to the continent he's off to france and italy and his mates are joining him out there i think he had lots of really close friends all right um and he treated a lot of the women including his wife uh badly um but it's so hard to hate him because he was just so hilarious and so generous and such a lovely friend right so if you're on his good sides he was loyal to a to a fault but absolutely i mean he did have female friendships as well, I should say. But yeah. With isosceles. Because he loves animals. He's had dogs. He's had a bear. He's had a bear.

All right. But when he gets to Venice, he's got a big old house and he's thinking, I'm going to get some pets. So Shelley tells the story of his pets. Do you want to guess what pets he might have had in this house? Well, he's got dogs now. Yeah. Because obviously, because he's allowed to have dogs. Yep.

Do you want me to guess how many dogs? Sure. Six. Not bad. Eight. Nearly there. He doesn't have a cat. Of course not.

Five. What? He's asking for trouble. They famously don't mix. Birds. Yep. Parrots. He's got eagles, crows.

Eagles? Eagle, crow and a falcon. Madness. He's got tenagles crows eagles eagle crow and a falcon madness he's got 10 horses in the house yep uh there are five peacocks of course there are two guinea hens and an egyptian crane and they're all just wandering around the house just wondering about the house you can't have 10 horses in the house there's also of course most importantly three monkeys but that's the only one i'm on board with i'm'm quite allergic to animals, though, so that would be proper. We'd both die in that house. Yeah, how many anti-estamines would you have to take every morning?

Oh, my God. I mean, I'm just two dogs and I'm on the floor wheezing. I love the idea of him in his menagerie. Yeah. Even though it must have been, I mean, it must have stunk. Oh, it must have smelled so bad. So much piss on the floor. Horses just stink, don't they?

Yeah, yeah. So Don Juan is his most famous poem, probably, from his entire career. We sometimes mispronounce it Don Juan. Yeah, he was sort of making a joke about how crappily British people pronounce foreign words. Right. So even though it's based on the Don Juan legend, his poem is called Don Juan. And it's a comedy. It is straight up comedy.

So this is where Byron let go of the formula that made him famous back in the day. And now he's having just loads of fun and writing this completely scandalous, hilarious, very long poem. It's like when Bobby De Niro stopped doing like really moody, acty parts and started doing comedies. And everyone's like, what's going on? So this is Byron's Meet the Parents, right? It's so much better than Meet the Parents, right? It's so much better than Meet the Parents if that's possible. And what's the plot of Don Tewin?

I mean, is it? So you might say, how is this abandoning the formula? Because it's about like a kind of young, but slightly less fruity, but still good looking.

It's about him again. It's a bit about him. But he's kind of a bit of a passive actor throughout the thing. Stuff happens to him by happenstance, manages to find himself on all sorts of adventures. There's quite a lot of eroticism in it. It's quite political. It's really great.

Is Byron a foodie? Because, I mean, Ed, you're a foodie. Oh, yeah. And your podcast is all about dream meals. Dream meals, indeed. Would you have a foodie. Oh, yeah. And your podcast is all about dream meals. Dream meals, indeed. Would you have Byron on? Oh, 100%. Because he's a genie running your restaurant, right?

Yeah. So you can get dead people on. We could. I don't know if the genie stretches to resurrecting dead guests so much as meals from across the world. Definitely, if Byron was up for it, which he famously was. Not for anything.

We'll reach out to his agent. Was he a foodie, Corinne? Well, he's got this kind of slightly weird relationship to food. Yeah, he tried to pick potato and vinegar. Yeah, you wouldn't have it. Shelley recorded that when he was staying with him, Byron would just eat a thin slice of toast and then vegetables for dinner and that was like it for the day.

He also hated watching people eat particularly women oh really so he often ate alone um he hated watching women eat yeah isn't that weird he said unless it's lobster or champagne i'm really it's been a real roller coaster for me yeah i'm very much off again yeah isn't it weird i mean this is the byron thing like he's awesome and then he's also terrible. So, yeah, he seems to have a sort of real issue with women. lasting relationship was in his final years and her name was Teresa Guiccioli and she was a beautiful rather young Italian woman who was married to a count who was three times nearly three times her age oh wow and the count just turned a blind eye to her relationship to Byron

and Byron even moved into their house just to let you know when anyone mentions a count I immediately picture the count from Sesame Street so I was having an absolute riot in my head there. It'd be amazing if she was married to one. But he's a vampire. He's a vampire. He's stolen Byron's look. No wonder she's into Byron. So he hangs around in Italy for a while. Now, the Shelley-Byron bromance doesn't last long

because there's a horrible tragedy. Shelley drowns. Shelley-Byron friendship has always, people have found really fascinating. Because Shelley wasn't exactly Byron's best friend, but they sort of represented two sides of romanticism. Like Byron is the kind of dark, broody, melancholic, and Shelley is, you know, head in the clouds,

dreamy, idealist. Shelley is the Luke Skywalker to Byron's Han Solo. They kind of represent that duality. It's a double Skywalker to Byron's Han Solo. They kind of represent that duality. It's a double act. It's a double act. It sort of reminds me of True Detective. The dark and then the light.

The drowning of Shelley, the boat that goes down is named the Don Dewan, named after a poem written by Byron. There's a sort of association there, isn't there? Oh, definitely. And Byron was there when, because they had to burn Shelley's body due to sort of Italian law. And famously, Shelley's heart didn't burn. And they gave Shelley's heart to Mary Shelley to keep.

Byron wanted to keep Shelley's skull. And everyone was like, no, that's weird. Not a good idea. Because he had a habit of turning skulls into drinking cups. That's what he did. He liked to drink out of skulls. He's pretty metal, this guy. He is quite Marilyn Manson.

Yeah. He's definitely darker and cooler than you expect for a poet. And then he heads off to Greece, which he's visited as a younger man. Yeah. So in Italy, his sort of late Elvis phase in Italy, he's kind of letting himself go a bit. All right. He's living in this menagerie. He's just sort of doing what he wants. He's having two slices of toast at the moment.

He does a bit of a kind of, what am I doing with my life? And he'd always been interested in Greece from the days when he studied ancient Greece. And they were in a war fighting for independence against the Turks at the time. And he decided to go and like kind of do something with his life. And he joined up to fight for Greek independence. Yeah. Wow. I mean, you know, it feels like an about turn. Well, he'd always been quite political and he'd always been a real champion of underdog

causes. So he'd kind of long been quite radical in his politics and really sort of championed the oppressed and the working man sort of back on board but then the comparison of someone who's behind the working man and someone who would only watch women eat lobster and champagne i mean i think he struggled with that duality there really is a lot of duality there yeah yeah uh he dies tragically in 1824 in greece and it's not a sort of sexy battlefield injury. No, it's such a shame. It would be great if he died in battle. But actually, before he even got on the field, he contracted a fever.

And the doctors at the time decided to leech him where they put sort of leeches to drain the blood because there was sort of this belief that the virus was in the blood. So he looked more like a vampire. Right. I mean, it's sort of awful that he either died of the fever or the blood loss. It's like the leeches are going, you think you're a vampire, mate. Yeah. This is what proper vampires look like. There's a painting, there's a great painting of Byron dead

and he's like the kind of beautiful Byron that we imagine. And it's like, you know what? I think after all that leeching, he wouldn't have looked that good. The nuance window! This is where our expert, Corinne, gets to just talk for two minutes uninterrupted on a thing that she's really passionate about. I'm assuming you're talking about Byron the Poet. Is that right?

That is exactly right. I feel like hopefully after listening to this podcast, people are going to want to go and read some of Byron's poems. So if you're wanting to read some Byron, you might think you should start with Childe Harold, which is the poem that made him famous. No, don't do that. It's really long. It's really quite dense. There's a lot of description of European countryside that you do not need. It's really quite dense. There's a lot of description of European countryside that you do not need. Go instead to a really short poem that he wrote in that same summer of 1816, which birthed Frankenstein and the vampire myth. It's called Darkness. It is a terrifying, apocalyptic vision of how the world would be if we faced total environmental disaster. I feel like Greta Thunberg could have written it. It's absolutely brilliant, horrifying, terrifying, not uplifting. After that, go and read The Prisoner of Chillon. That's C-H-I-L-L-O-N. It's slightly longer, but still manageable. And it's also, it's like a sort of quintessential romantic poem about a prisoner who is in terrible

circumstances, but imagines the lakes of Switzerland and the Alps outside of the prison cell where he sits and thus kind of elevates himself out of his situation. It's beautiful. And finally, if you have liked those two and want a total change of tack, you've got to read Don Juan. It's hilarious. You don't need to read the whole thing. It's long. It's like novel length.

But if you just read the first three cantos, it will make you laugh. There is some cannibalism, but it's all played for laughs. And really, it really, really holds up. Like, you will genuinely laugh. So that's my homework for you. Go and read those three poems. I love that there's some cannibalism just slotted in there. Just a bit.

Just a word of warning. Every good poem needs some cannibalism, doesn't it? Wow. Thank you so much for that. That's fascinating. I presume you can find those online? Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to go and read them.

Good. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like these are the kind of stuff we like we like heavy metal don't we like dark gothic stuff so cannibalism lovely so what do you know now all right well we've reached the point now where we we put you to the test oh no okay this is what's called the so what do you know now we We had the So What Do You Know at the beginning. Now we've learned some things. You've got 60 seconds. There are 10 questions. They are all things we've talked about so far, hopefully. See what you can do.

So, okay, here we go. What did Caroline Lamb send as a gift to Byron? Bloody pubes. Yes, bloody pubes. What is the most famous poem, the comedy that Byron wrote? Don Juan. Yes. Who was Byron's friend who drowned in a boat called Don Juan?

Percy Shelley. Yeah. What did Byron keep at university as a pet? Pet. Oh, he's doing very well. In 1812, Byron became an overnight superstar with the poem about travel called what? Child Harold's Pilgrimage. Hey.

Hello. What was Byron's full name? Oh. Or just his first name? George. George is right. George was Byron's full name? Oh. Or just his first name? George. George is right. George Gordon Byron. According to Shelley, name three of the animals that Byron kept in his menagerie in Venice.

Peacocks. Yeah. Cats and dogs. Byron's only legitimate daughter was called what? Ada Lovelace. Yeah. Where did he die? Greece.

Greece is correct. And final question. What was the name of the Byron fandom? Byromania. Ten out of ten. Happy with that. I is correct. And final question. What was the name of the Byron fandom? Byromania. 10 out of 10. Happy with that. I learned loads. Very impressive.

I will be forgetting this in one calendar month. Yeah, but it's recorded so you can listen. I love the idea of it just elapsing on a clock. I will be spreading that knowledge far and wide for the next 30 days. Well, thank you so much to both of you. That's been an absolute hoot. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've...

Great time. Where are you standing now on Byron? I'm still... I still don't know. Okay. I've been, you know... I think we've been through the rigor with Byron. I still don't know if he was a good guy or not.

Yeah. I guess it proves that you can never really be 100% one way or the other. The devil and the angel. Still, he had a pet monkey, so I like him. He had three monkeys. He had three monkeys. I triple like him. Well, if you've enjoyed that, please do like and subscribe.

Do all those things you're meant to do with podcasts. Tell your friends, et cetera, et cetera. The podcast is called You're Dead to Me. A huge thank you to our guest, Dr. Corin Throsby

from the University of Cambridge. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great. It's been a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, the wonderful Ed Gamble. Thank you. It's been great. Yeah. Honestly, um and in comedy corner the wonderful ed gamble thank you it's been great yeah honestly i've had a lovely time well that's good i feel like we had an

exciting bit of history i picked something that we thought would be bespoke for you thank you i could have got the russian revolution or something you could i mean maybe next time we'll get you back in i'm busy all right with that uh i'm off to go go and pen some emotive poetry about Napoleon and Wellington. Not the historical figures, but my dead pet rabbits from when I was a kid. They fought a lot, that's why we call them Napoleon and Wellington. Anyway, I'm done. Right, that's enough podcast, bye! You're Dead to Me was a Muddy Knees media production for BBC Radio 4.

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