The Byron Journal has reached an impressive milestone this month with the publication of its 50th volume.
The Byron Journal is an international publication published twice annually by Liverpool University Press on behalf of The Byron Society in London. The journal publishes scholarly articles and notes on all aspects of Byron’s writings and life, and on related topics.
A note from the Editor
The Byron Journal celebrates its 50th anniversary this year! When we began, in 1973, Elvis and John Lennon were still alive, Ireland and the UK had just entered the EEC, Richard Nixon was still in office, the Bosphorus Bridge connecting Europe and Asia was opened in Istanbul, and Prokofiev’s War and Peace inaugurated the new Sydney Opera House. The journal has been shaping scholarly debate in Byron Studies and Romanticism for half a century and continues to do so. We welcome new work on any aspect of Byron’s work and life, his political and poetic legacies, as well as new work on Byron’s Romantic contemporaries and the poetic worlds shaped in their wake. The first issue of each year also presents book reviews across the wide range of Romantic Studies. The second issue reports on global Byronic activities including the international Byron conference, the Messolonghi Byron student conference, the MLA Byron panels, and so very much more. The Byron Journal can’t wait for its sixth decade!
As part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, we have a few highlights, including an interview with the editors, but we are also unlocking five articles for all readers, one from each of the journal’s past and present editors, on a range of exciting topics: Romantic Italy, the queerness of the Thyrza poems, Byron’s love letters, Byronic hangovers, and Byronic swimming. Please do enjoy these essays – and revel in the astonishing variety of Byron scholarship over five decades that the journal has brought to readers – all archived on the journal’s website for all readers to access and enjoy. Happy Birthday to The Byron Journal, and here’s to the next 50 years!
Anniversary celebrations
To celebrate the anniversary of its 50th volume, Liverpool University Press (in collaboration with The Byron Journal) is making a selection of notable articles from past issues free to read for the next month. The chosen articles have been selected by The Byron Journal’s five editors.
You can also browse the latest issue (volume 50, issue 2) of The Byron Journal via the Liverpool University Press website:
Free to read articles from The Byron Journal
Tourists and Lovers: Beppo and Amours de Voyage
VOL 28.1 (2000)
Drummond Bone
‘Accomplished verse’ and ‘awakened hearts’: Byron’s ‘Thyrza’ Poems
VOL 33.2 (2005)
Bernard Beatty
Byron’s Love Letters
VOL 43.1 (2015)
Alan Rawes
‘D—-d corkscrew staircases’: Byron’s Hangovers
VOL 40.1 (2012)
Jonathon Shears
‘Headlong he leapt—to him the swimmer’s skill / Was native’: Byron at Sea
VOL 47.1 (2019)
Mirka Horová
New Books in Byron Studies
Reading Byron by Bernard Beatty
Perhaps no great poet, in any language, has suffered more than Byron from being merely read about rather than actually read. In this important collection of essays, Bernard Beatty, who won the International Byron Societies’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, argues that Byron is not ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ but serious, ethical and rewarding to read.
Byron and John Murray by Mary O’Connell (New in paperback)
The first comprehensive account of the relationship between Byron and John Murray, the man who published his poetry for over ten years. Byron’s ambivalent attitude towards professional writing and popular literature can be illuminated through an understanding of his relationship with his publisher.
Byron in Geneva by David Ellis
Byron in Geneva focuses sharply on the poet’s life in the summer of that year, a famous time for meteorologists (for whom 1816 is the year without a summer), but also that crucial moment in the development of his writing when, urged on by Shelley, Byron tried to transform himself into a Romantic poet of the Wordsworthian variety.
You can browse the full range of Journals and Books from our Literary Studies collection via the Liverpool University Press website.
Enjoyed this article? You might be interested in Some Bright Eternity: Shelley at 200.
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