‘I think of trying prose’: Byron & the Novel 

‘Don’t you think that I have a very Good Knack for novel writing?’, asked Byron in an early letter. This talk will trace some of Byron’s most revealing encounters with the evolving form of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel. Byron claimed to have read ‘novels bythe thousand’ and over the course of his career made several unfinished attempts at fictional tales in prose, including a ‘Chapter of a Novel’ in 1813. He would come to describe his great long poem Don Juan as ‘a poetical’ Tristram Shandy. Byron was deeply familiar with the art of the novelist. This talk asks a more specific question: what can this lifelong interest in prose tell us about Byron the poet?

Where:

Art Workers Guild

6 Queen Square

Bloomsbury

London WC1N 3AT

See Map 

When:

Drinks 6.30-7.00

Lecture 7.00-8.00pm

There will be a dinner for those who wish to join, details will be confirmed closer to the time.