Lot 179
Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824)
Autograph manuscript fragment
Auction: Other Properties | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 63 to 255
Description
single sheet (6.5 x 18.1cm, folded in half), containing a few lines of the end of narrative poem ‘Oscar of Alva,’ part of Byron's second collection of poems, Hours of Idleness (Newark, 1807), containing slight differences in the text of the fragment and the published version of the poem, the sheet is enclosed in a folded sheet of paper pasted in to the album on which has been written: ‘Lord Byron’s writing, a portion of the original poem of Oscar of Alva, E.B. Pigot, Southwell, Sept. 22d, 1846;' Elizabeth Bridget Pigot (1783-1866) was a neighbour, friend and correspondent of Byron, the poet having lived in Burgage Manor in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, between 1804-07; Pigot made fair copies of all the poems Byron had printed when he was at Southwell, with the fair copies being sent to the Newark bookseller John Ridge for publication. In an autograph album, 19th century, 16mo, green embossed cloth, gilt edges, including fragments of the writing of John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, an Arabic translation of the New Testament speech of Jesus on the cross ‘Forgive them father,’ and approx. 30 additional signatures
Footnote
The publication of Byron's Hours of Idleness (1807) was subject to the scathing attack in The Edinburgh Review in 1808 which in turn provoked Byron to write English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.