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Rating: 
Summary: Generally good; a fun summer read.
Review: A delightfully readable book. Ms. Eisler writes well and researches well, though a reader might not always grant the objectivity of her sources. I did not, however, as did some of the other reviewers,find her unfair to Byron. It is true that Eisler accepts the fact that Byron was bisexual and thus comes a long way from Leslie Marchand's two-volume biography. She does, nonetheless, fill in gaps left by Marchand, and she treats Annabella Milbanke Byron more generously than have others, but she never loses sympathy with Byron nor causes us to do so, despite his faults. The one problem I had with the biography was her unfairness to Shelley. In all his interactions with Byron, Shelley is made to seem an ungrateful and duplicitous friend. Yet, with just one exception, none of the evidence Eisler presented in these instances would convince this reader. Each interaction was open to interpretation. She always faulted Shelley. I saw these events differently. Eisler was much more on target when she made similar charges about Leigh Hunt. However, the treatment of Shelley aside, I found the book first rate, a happy combination of biography and discussion of poetry.
Rating: 
Summary: Thorough, well-researched, compelling and objective
Review: An excellent biography. Eisler presents the life and times of Byron and his circle with extensive excerpts from works, letters, and other documented materials. An objective and fascinating journey of the brief rise and subsequent downward spiral of the man and the poet. Eisler's writing is exemplary - highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Hobby Horse Takes on a New Meaning
Review: I tried to like this biography. I honestly tried. However, when the bulk of information about Byron's life is gleaned from the letters of people who hated him (often with good reason)I wonder about the integrity of the author. Ms. Eisler's style is an uneven mixture of purple prose (think of a boddace-ripper written by a humorless grad student), dry academia, and tabloid golly-gee-this-should-have-been-on-the-Springer Show vapidity (if that is a word).Eisler dwells overmuch on Byron's and Hobhouse's alleged homosexuality and misogyny: as if those traits were the only traits that informed friendship, personality, much less, literary ability.
Rating: 
Summary: Sensationalism
Review: Sadly, the recent biographic trend on Byron has been to concentrate more on his sexuality than on the fullness of his life. This follows that trend slavishly, it reaches for sensationalism and fails to reveal the poet. It is a glossy superficial biography that appears thinly researched and accepting of much rumor as fact. Serious students of Byron should avoid and seek out the much more balanced and accurate Marchand biography.
Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Bio of Ld. Byron
Review: The biography of Byron by B. Eisler is thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and will become, I do believe, the definitive biography for years to come. The reader can follow almost a day to day life of this most modern of poets, womanizer, blackguard and traveler; but one is always held in thralled at the scope of his poetry, and the tragedy of his short life. Bravo Ms. Eisler.
Rating: 
Summary: Why write it?
Review: The fascination with or against Byron is a natural response
but why Benita whould have spent ten years on a subject she is so cool about is a puzzle. There is no new information in this except a retelling of others tales and the settling of certainty on any malignant gossip ever piled on Byron to extinguish him as a political contender. Malcolm Elwin, John Chapman, Ashley Hay, Drinkwater, Thomas Moore, Doris Langley Moore are good antidotes to this poison.
Rating:
Summary: Novelistic and Deeply Entertaining
Review: The man who gave our language the essential term "Byronic" was as keen a student of publicity as the most contemporary of authors. In fact, he still holds the record for selling more copies of a book in one day than any other poet: 10,000. Lord Byron could work the press and influential audiences because he was always conscious of the interconnections between his image and his writing. Dualities came naturally though painfully to him, as we learn in Benita Eisler's lusciously detailed, triumphantly evocative new biography which reveals him in all his deeply flawed glory. A beautiful, charismatic man, Byron felt his clubfoot was a mark of Cain, but his lameness disappeared in the water where he was a swimmer famed for his prowess, and happy to brag about it. Sometimes quite shy in society (and a dud as a Member of Parliament), he could also be a coruscating speaker who not only won hearts and admiration, but ignited fierce passions and deep envy. When Byron gained someone's love, he often seemed eager to move on and could often seem heartless; cynicism came easily to one of England's greatest satiric poets. But perhaps the most significant duality in his life was sexual, which played out most intensely on his post-Cambridge Grand Tour in the Balkans where he reveled in partners of both sexes. There, he was also inspired to later aid Greece's independence from Turkey, and he died in the effort. It would have been easy to write about Byron's personality and lose the focus on his work: he was after all amazingly bawdy, moody, paranoid, witty, free-thinking, mawkish, puritanical, loving, cruel. His life was wracked with dramatic scandal, most notably the dangerous liaison with his married half-sister Augusta, which continued after his marriage, likewise a disaster. Fleeing England and disgrace, he always looked back to it for verification of his success, but became a greater and more dedicated poet in exile. Even if you're not familiar with the range of Byron's poetry beyond "She Walks in Beauty," this meticulous, entertaining and vivid biography will inspire you to read many of the quotations aloud and seek out the full texts. So Byron's poems--especially his comic masterpiece "Don Juan"--live here as richly as do the varied voices of his amazingly vivid and justly famous letters. Lev Raphael, author of LITTLE MISS EVIL, the 4th Nick Hoffman mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know
Review: This is a very comprehensive and controversial biography about the great poet Lord Byron, who gave us some of the most wonderful lyric and narrative poems in the English language. This bio does at times linger a lot on his rather daring and adventurous sex-life, and perhaps less on his work and the significance of it, but this tome is an intriguing read. Yes, the author re-produces rumor and innuendo, but let us not forget that rumors sometimes turn out to be true. This is not a smear on Byron, but an elucidating portrait that tells us much more about the man he was, and how he lived, loved, and fought. I enjoyed learning more about the private man and his troubled childhood, his brilliance and celebrity, his dangerous liaisons, including sodomy, orgies, and incest with his half-sister, Augusta. This is a man whose sins and scandals live on along with his clear and uniquely beautiful poetry. David Rehak
(...)
Rating:
Summary: Preciously Byronic
Review: To begin with, the more exacting reviewers are correct in their assertions that there is nothing new here, aside from Eisler's "spin" on previously well-known facts about the infamous and lionized Poet and Lord. This book is definitely NOT for those interested in a thorough, searching delve into Byron and his poetry. But, moreover, it is not even the "page-turner" which other reviewers make it out to be. The book is written in this precious, cozy, semi-academese which drains the blood from the writing. There is no evaluation of the poet in the context in the particular developmental stage of English poetry at the time. And Shelley, in particular, gets a particularly curt dismissal.---But the real problem with this biography is not that Eisler is dismissive of other (in Shelley's case, better) poets or that her book is simply a rehashing of previously known circumstances. The problem is her plodding, lifeless, cutesy writing style. By the end of the book, one feels that Ms. Eisler has appropriated Byron into her cozy world of popularized, made-for-giant-publishing-houses beach-read bios. Has anyone else noticed that all the chapters are almost the exact number of pages in length? Such precise compartmentalization does not for the reflection of a life make, in particular Byron's! The one merit this book indisbutably does have is to make you want to read or reread Byron's poetry. Eisler's citations of neatly culled snippets are the only lively thing in the book! So, after you've read all about the minutiae of the poet's life and feel drained and off-put at the end: Close thy Eisler! Open thy Byron!
Rating:
Summary: Why write it?
Review: To begin with, the more exacting reviewers are correct in their assertions that there is nothing new here, aside from Eisler's "spin" on previously well-known facts about the infamous and lionized Poet and Lord. This book is definitely NOT for those interested in a thorough, searching delve into Byron and his poetry. But, moreover, it is not even the "page-turner" which other reviewers make it out to be. The book is written in this precious, cozy, semi-academese which drains the blood from the writing. There is no evaluation of the poet in the context in the particular developmental stage of English poetry at the time. And Shelley, in particular, gets a particularly curt dismissal.---But the real problem with this biography is not that Eisler is dismissive of other (in Shelley's case, better) poets or that her book is simply a rehashing of previously known circumstances. The problem is her plodding, lifeless, cutesy writing style. By the end of the book, one feels that Ms. Eisler has appropriated Byron into her cozy world of popularized, made-for-giant-publishing-houses beach-read bios. Has anyone else noticed that all the chapters are almost the exact number of pages in length? Such precise compartmentalization does not for the reflection of a life make, in particular Byron's! The one merit this book indisbutably does have is to make you want to read or reread Byron's poetry. Eisler's citations of neatly culled snippets are the only lively thing in the book! So, after you've read all about the minutiae of the poet's life and feel drained and off-put at the end: Close thy Eisler! Open thy Byron!
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