Biography

Commonly known as Lord Byron, he was an English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Often called "the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics," Lord Byron was also the "most fashionable poet of the day [because] he created an immensely popular Romantic hero—defiant, melancholy, haunted by secret guilt—for which, to many, he seemed the model." Among Byron's best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems "Don Juan," "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," and the short lyric "She Walks in Beauty." 
Lord Byron traveled widely throughout Europe, especially in Italy where he lived for 7 years. He joined the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died at age 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece. Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs with both sexes, including rumors of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential.