The Lord Byron Series by Gretta Curran Browne

"Good night—or rather, morning. It is four, and the dawn gleams over the Grand Canal and unshadows the Rialto. I must to bed; up all night — but, 'it's life, though, damme, it's life!' "An Englishman in Italy, Lord Byron's life in Venice is full of fun, laughter, and devil-may-care romancing – until he meets his last and truest love, the eighteen-year-old Teresa Gamba Guiccioli, for whom he risks everything, even the danger to his own life; and moreso, his own pride... more"Good night—or rather, morning. It is four, and the dawn gleams over the Grand Canal and unshadows the Rialto. I must to bed; up all night — but, 'it's life, though, damme, it's life!' "An Englishman in Italy, Lord Byron's life in Venice is full of fun, laughter, and devil-may-care romancing – until he meets his last and truest love, the eighteen-year-old Teresa Gamba Guiccioli, for whom he risks everything, even the danger to his own life; and moreso, his own pride.Every part of Venice is reflected in his poetry – walking across the bridge that connects the Doge's Palace to the prisons from which none returned, he invented the name that made it famous all over the world, "The Bridge of Sighs" because of the sad sighs, he believed, that those condemned prisoners would release on seeing Venice and freedom for the last time.But it is his letters back home to England that bring Venice and its people to life with irresistible high spirits, bewitching and picturesque, with rumours and jokes and flippant with effervescent self-ridicule, occasionally solemn, but not often."He [BYRON} is the most enjoyable letter-writer in the world." -- Elizabeth, Countess of Longford. less

Two people - married unhappily to others - but desperately in love with each other, living in a time when wedlock was a padlock for life, with no opening key. For Lord Byron, Teresa Guiccioli is not his only desperate love; he also loves Italy, and cares for the Italian people now under the crushing rule of Austria... moreTwo people - married unhappily to others - but desperately in love with each other, living in a time when wedlock was a padlock for life, with no opening key. For Lord Byron, Teresa Guiccioli is not his only desperate love; he also loves Italy, and cares for the Italian people now under the crushing rule of Austria. Can he fight the Austrians with scathing poetry, or join the secret Italian organisation of the 'Carbonari' who are preparing to take back their country with war? Yet it is while he is in Italy that his own nation of Britain makes a huge political request of him – insisting he is the only man who can do it – and so once again he dons the red military uniform of a commissioned British officer and leave Italy for Greece, knowing that the hardest stage of his journey still stretches ahead. "There was a helplessness about Byron, a sort of abandonment of himself to his "destiny" as he called it. He believed in Fate, and when Fate spoke to him clearly, he always answered the call." ––– Quinnell. less