George Gordon, Lord Byron, was a second generation British Romantic poet. Born in 1788, he was not expected to inherit the title of Lord Byron until a cousin died in an accident; following this, he gained the title upon the death of his great-uncle in 1798, and received his inheritance ten years later. He began writing poetry while at Trinity College, Cambridge. The following years were spent travelling and writing in the company of mistresses and other poets. He spent the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, in the company of Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley and Clare Claremont. It was this summer that the story The Vampire, discussed at the beginning of this letter, is generally supposed to have been written. In 1823, his health in decline, he sailed for Greece to fight in their war for independence. While there, working to finance revolutionary armies, he contracted an illness and died in Missolonghi on April 19, 1824.
From the guide to the George Gordon, Lord Byron Letter, (MS 144), April 27th, 1819, April 27th, 1819, (University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Special Collections Dept.)
