A black-and-white illustration featuring a bucolic landscape with a man wearing traditional Scottish attire raising his fist in the air

Unknown illustrator
"When I Roved a Young Highlander"
Steel engraving, late 19th century
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection

Byron: A Life in Motion explores the thrilling and complex life of the poet George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788–1824). The exhibition traces Byron’s movements, from his boyhood and youth in Aberdeen, Nottinghamshire, and Cambridge, to his tour through the Near East and Greece, to the moment in 1813 when he shot to fame with Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and his brief time as a London writer, socialite, and young husband. When his marriage failed, Byron set off again: to Switzerland, for a summer gathering in Geneva that sparked Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; to Venice, where he began work on his masterpiece, Don Juan, and on to Ravenna, Pisa, and Genoa with his companion Contessa Teresa Guiccioli, the Shelleys, and other friends. Byron’s final turn was away from poetry toward military action. In 1823 he sailed to Greece to join the national uprising against Turkish rule, but died there in April 1824 of illness and loss of blood before he saw action. Acclaimed a hero in Greece, Byron shook England one last time when his remains traveled through London to the family vault in Nottinghamshire. 

The objects in the exhibition, most of which come from the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, include letters to and from Byron, literary manuscripts, books, paintings, prints, and even wine bills that contextualize his complicated existence. A final section glancing at Byron's posthumous fame includes modern responses to the poet and his work.

This exhibition is organized by The New York Public Library and curated by Elizabeth Denlinger, Curator of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle.

Highlights

A three-quarter portrait of a man wearing a velvet cloak, looking over his shoulder
William Sartain, 1843–1924 (Artist), after Thomas Phillips
Portrait of Byron
Mezzotint
New York: The Max Williams Company, 390 Fifth Avenue, 1868
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection
A multicolored illustration of a man in a red velvet jacket and striped breeches is leaning against a rocky landscape overlooking a stormy sea. An angel flies above him as the clouds open up in the sky revealing a group of people beckoning him up
W. Davenport (Artist); E.F. Lambert (Drafter); George Hunt (Engraver)
“Byron’s immortality; or The vision of Childe Harold,” Plate 1
from The Book of Spirits, and Tales of the Dead: Comprising “Lord Byron in the other world …”
London: William Charlton Wright, [1827]
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
A sheet of paper with handwriting in black ink, some of which has been crossed out
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
Manuscript draft of “Fare Thee Well”
March 18, 1816
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
An old book with weathered pages is opened to an engraving depicting three actors performing on a stage
Richard Cumberland, 1732–1811
The Wheel of Fortune: a Comedy, in Five Acts
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme
Undated but Byron inscribed September 15, 1806.
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
A painting of a woman lying in a bed surrounded by a red curtain, with a skeleton standing over her
Lady Caroline Lamb, 1785–1828
Image of woman and skeleton in Lady Julia Conyers’s album
Watercolor and pencil on paper
ca. 1810
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
A handwritten love letter, composed in Italian
Anonymous note from one of Lord Byron’s Venetian lovers
1817–19
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
A watercolor painting depicting a bucolic landscape with a river, mountains, and path lined with various flora
Thomas Henry Graham, 1793–1881
Sketchbook … Recording A Tour in Switzerland and France
Pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper
1818
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
The title page of the book Frankenstein dated from 1818
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1797–1851
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus: In Three Volumes
London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, and Jones, 1818
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Painted illustration of an African American boxer in a fighting pose
Robert Dighton, 1752–1814
Molineaux
Ink and watercolor on paper
[London]: Dighton, Spring Gardens
January 1812
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Painted illustration of an African American boxer in a fighting pose
Robert Dighton, 1752–1814
A Striking View of Richmond
Ink and watercolor on paper
[London]: [Dighton,] 6 Charing Cross
March 1810
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
A full-body silhouette of a man sitting down in profile
“Cut in paper by Mrs Leigh Hunt,” Marianne Hunt, 1788–1857 (Artist);
Samuel Freeman, 1773–1857 (Engraver)
Lord Byron, as he appeared after his ride at Pisa & Genoa
Ink on paper
London: R. Ackermann, No 101, Strand, Oct. 6, 1828
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Photograph of a gold and black ring with a red and white crown and the name BYRON engraved on it
Charles Rawlings (Goldsmith)
Byron mourning ring
Enamel on gold
1824
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

Large Print Labels

Large print logo

Access the exhibition's large print labels.

Byron: A Life in Motion

Large-type labels are also available at the information desk in the McGraw Rotunda on the third floor of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

Byron in the Library Shop

Groups of people in a large space with dark wooden shelves filled with books, tote bags, and accessories.

Curious to read more of Lord Byron’s poetry? Following your visit to the exhibition, you can choose from a selection of books related to his life and works for purchase in the Library Shop on the first floor of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

Visit the Library Shop Online

About the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle

Photograph of an empty reading room interior with a wooden table, purple velvet chairs and stacks of books along the walls

The Collection was the creation of the financier Carl H. Pforzheimer (1879-1957), who took a special interest in the lives and works of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his contemporaries, including his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and such friends and fellow writers as Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, Teresa Guiccioli, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, Horace Smith, and Edward John Trelawny. Learn more about this division. 

Curatorial Acknowledgments

I offer my thanks to Tony Marx, President of the NYPL, Brent Reidy, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries, and Franses Rodriguez, Deputy Director of the Research Libraries.

In Exhibitions, without whom none of this would be possible, I would like to thank Becky Laughner, Amanda Raquel Dorval, Tereza Chanaki, Carl Auge, Natalie Ortiz, Jake Hamill, Ryan Douglass, Jermaine Neal, Clayton Skidmore, Christopher Alzapeidi, and Henry Ballate;

in Digital Imaging Services, Rebecca Wack, Steven Crossot, Doran Walot, Jeanie Pai, Pete Riesett, Emily Hoffman, Jenny Jordan, Marietta Davis, Grattan Perea, and Rebecca Baldwin; 

in the Registrar’s Office, Deborah Straussman, Caryn Gedell, and Martin Branch-Shaw; 

in Conservation and Collections Care, Ursula Mitra, Emily Müller, Addison Yu, Anna Dyczewska, and Mary Oey;

in the Office of Budget and Planning, Margaret Young;

in Programming, Aidan Flax-Clark and Margie Cook;

in Communications, Charles Arrowsmith, Laurie Beckoff, Sandee Roston, Lizzie Tribone, Katharina Seifert, Rosalene Labrado-Perillo, and Maya Sariahmed;  

in Permissions and Metadata, Kiowa Hammons, Zoe Waldron, Dina Selfridge, and Molly O’Brien;

in the Library Shop, Krista Rauth, Elana Sinsabaugh, and Lizzy Nahum-Albright;

in the Pforzheimer Collection, Charles Carter and Timothy Gress; 

in the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division, Schomburg, Barrye Brown; 

in the Wallach Division, Deirdre Donohue, Maggie Mustard, Madeleine Viljoen, Margaret Glover, and Alvaro Lazo;

in Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books, SASB, Julie Golia; 

at the Berg Collection, Carolyn Vega and Julie Carlsen; 

the designers, Ivi Diamontopoulos, Jaffer Kolb, and Nashwah Ahmed from New Affiliates, and Courtney Gooch, Clara Angela, and Rory Simms from Portrait. 

Outside of the NYPL I’d like to thank, above all, Doucet Devin Fischer for her expert reading of the labels; Mim Harrison for copyediting; former colleagues Declan Kiely and Susan Rabbiner; Lore Segal, Robert Macdonald, Judith Lichtendorf, Marjorie Tesser, Dorotea Mendoza, Bob Perron, Laura Geringer Bass, Martin Hason, George Bear, and Jean Halley; Christopher Edwards; Chris Fletcher; and not least, Joy Ladin.

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