Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron: Noted During a Residence With His Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822

by Thomas Medwin (Creator)

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1825

Reviews

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The days belong to Byron.

I had written a review and, later, decided to delete it. Okay, I did not delete it, I just put it in the folder where legends die. Anyway, that review had quotes and facts and some nonsensical analysis of the conversations that Thomas Medwin transcribed, after a logical warning: he could deliver the substance but not the form, that being Byron's wit and eloquence.
I wrote that review and then realized how useless that was. I could say everything I wanted to say in one single quote. A quote by an extraordinary writer. The true enchanter of all words; familiar and unknown.

If, after I die, someone wants to write my biography,
There's nothing simpler.
It has just two dates—the day I was born and the day I died.
Between the two, all the days are mine.

- Fernando Pessoa, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems (61)

Between the two, all the days are mine.
Besides its unquestionable beauty, there is a particular sound that cuts the air like the sharpest of knives.
Between the two, all the days are mine.
A sound you can almost feel. There. Practically piercing your body, finding its way to your mind in the most incredible display of self-preservation.
All the days are mine.

All the days are ours.




Sep 21, 15
* Also on my blog.
It seems like this is the first review for this book around here. Yeah... Sorry, Goodreads.

[Laura McNeal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine you are invited by your friend from childhood, now famous, to visit him in Italy. He says he will introduce you to his other friend, who is not just famous but staggeringly famous. You do what they do but at a very low level, and no one knows your name or your achievements, if they could be called that, so you can’t help being excited. Say it’s music or pro sports or race car driving, instead of poetry, because that’s the level of fame we are talking about. Your famous childhood friend succeeds in getting you into the palace of the Rich Bestselling Celebrity who refuses to meet practically everyone, especially people from his own country, which he hates because of the bad press over his divorce and recent love affairs. Not only does the Rich, Titled, Bestselling Celebrity invite you to his palace but he invites you back. You find yourself visiting every single day and being folded into the Bestselling Celebrity’s routine: rise at 2 pm, eat a very small meal, play billiards, wait for the Celebrity’s valet to announce the carriage, and then be driven by a servant to the city limits, where horses are waiting for you, and you ride them to a farm where the farmer has everything set up for target practice. After shooting pistols at coins and paying the farmer, you ride back to Pisa, and you watch the Bestselling Celebrity drink and eat and flirt (called making love in those days) with a beautiful Italian countess in the presence of (weirdly) her ancient father. Do you take notes? Do you write down absolutely everything he says and does? And then do you publish a book of your Conversations after, in quick succession, your famous childhood friend drowns in a sailing accident and is cremated on the beach and the Bestselling Celebrity tragically dies in yet another foreign country (Greece) where he has gone to fight for their independence? That’s what this book is, and as strange as it is most of the time, there is something eternally sad and yet riveting about the way celebrity attracts acolytes and tell-alls, and the waves of influence ripple out, sometimes for centuries. This book demythologized Byron for me but also, necessarily, made him human, and though I don’t respect Medwin or think he is a good or perceptive writer, I can’t help being glad an eyewitness left a record of that time and place, which was every bit as involved with pistols, great big scary dogs on chains, fancy vehicles, big houses, late night parties with royalty, paranoid self-defense against reporters and the press, and alcohol as our own.