The life unfolds chronologically, the chapter headings specifying the countries and places representing the periods of Byron's life associated with them: Cambridge 1805-7, London and Brighton 1808-9, Greece and Constantinople 1809-10, and so on. The author's intellectual grasp and unstinting devotion to verifiable fact, all this no doubt enhanced by her five-year 'pilgrimage' through the countries of Europe visited by Byron, lends authority and an authentic flavour to the style and language. The many references to correspondence, together with quotations from the poetry, are made with due regard to their relevance to particular places, people and events, the writer's occasional interpretative comment being well justified by her soundly-based acquaintance, and indeed intimacy, with the scope of her subject.

Such considered commentary, always unobtrusive, is necessary as much to the craftmanship and thematic working of the book as a whole, as it is to achieving a natural coherence and fluency in the language. For example, Byron tasted the 'excitements' of gambling, encouraged by Scrope Davies, his Cambridge friend: "For Byron excitement was a state of bliss, in all respects preferable to inertia. Each turn of the card and each cast of the dice created life-enhancing tension. A gambler always lived in hope." Here there is a hint of symbolism, an insight into the risks and rewards of an adventurous life. Similarly, the description of a memorable episode involving the shooting dead of the Military Commander of Ravenna, Captain Luigi dal Pinto, in the street close to Byron's residence, later followed by an assassination attempt on Byron himself, concludes with the observation: "But what interested Byron most about the murder was not the local politics but the underlying strangeness, what it said about the human condition. What was the dividing line between a life and a death, he wondered as he sat beside the oddly tranquil body of the physically courageous but unpopular Dal Pinto....?" The comprehensive and meticulous 'Sources and Reference Notes' provide the searching reader with page by page elucidation of the text, this further amplified by an excellent Index highlighting persons, locations, works and attributes.

This book will delight not only the literary scholar but also the critical general reader who is prepared to expend a certain mental effort in tackling what after all is a solid testament to a literary genius, a figure no less heroic than the Napoleon he emulated. The author eschews emotionalism and allows the drama of a life to speak from within itself: herein lies the writer's art. The characters themselves come to life in all their paradoxical humanity, whether it be - to name but a few - the absurdly capricious (and vindictive) Lady Caroline Lamb, fellow-poet and 'brother outcast' Shelley, the loyal and protective Hobhouse, or Countess Teresa Guiccioli, Byron's most 'enduring' mistress, with whom he conducted an affair 'in an atmosphere of stealth and potential skulduggery'.

'Byron Life and Legend' is beautifully produced and superbly illustrated. It is now an indispensable part of Byronic lore, and a 'sine qua non' for literary collections and libraries.