Despite these enticements, a naval career was considered somewhat unseemly for a person of Byron’s pedigree—a “perversion,” as Samuel Johnson, who knew Byron’s family, called it. Yet Byron was enraptured by the mystique of the sea. He was fascinated by books about sailors, like Sir Francis Drake, so much so that he brought them onboard the Wager—the stories of maritime exploits stashed in his sea chest.
