Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to Thomas Moore, 3 September 1821
“Ravenna, September 3d, 1821.
“By Mr. Mawman (a
paymaster in the corps, in which you and I are privates) I yesterday expedited to your
address, under cover one, two paper books, containing the Giaour-nal, and a thing or two. It won’t all do—even
for the posthumous public—but extracts from it may. It is a brief and faithful chronicle
of a month or so—parts of it not very discreet, but sufficiently sincere. Mr.
Mawman saith that he will, in person or per friend, have it delivered to
you in your Elysian fields.
“If you have got the new Juans, recollect that there are some very gross
printer’s blunders, particularly in the Fifth Canto,—such as ‘praise’
for ‘pair’—‘precarious’ for
‘precocious’—‘Adriatic’ for
‘Asiatic’—‘case’ for ‘chase’—besides gifts of
additional words and syllables, which make but a cacophonous rhythmus. Put the pen
through the said, as I would
* Written in the envelope of the preceding
Letter. |
522 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
mine through * *’s ears, if I were alongside him. As it is, I have sent him
a rattling letter, as abusive as possible. Though he is publisher to the ‘Board of
Longitude,’ he is in no danger of discovering it.
“I am packing for Pisa—but direct your letters here, till further notice.
“Yours ever, &c.”
Joseph Mawman (1760 c.-1827)
Bookseller of York (1788) and London, where he purchased the business of Charles Dilly in
1800; he was an acquaintance of Samuel Parr.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Don Juan. (London: 1819-1824). A burlesque poem in ottava rima published in installments: Cantos I and II published in
1819, III, IV and V in 1821, VI, VII, and VIII in 1823, IX, X, and XI in 1823, XII, XIII,
and XIV in 1823, and XV and XVI in 1824.