'Byron's poetry', writes Andre Maurois in his preface to this book 'was that of a restless age. The French Revolution had given birth to great hopes, and it had disappointed them. The Napoleonic Wars had been the occasion of acts of unavailing heroism. Millions of men had experienced, as Byron did, the feeling of the injustice and madness of the universe. For them, as for himself, his poems were "the volcano, the eruption of which prevents an earthquake".' This superb biography, translated from the French by Hamish Miles, was first published in 1930, has as many insights into Byron's character and genius as any subsequently published work on Byron.
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