Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Lord Byron's Correspondence, Vol. 1 of 2: Chiefly With Lady Melbourne, Mr. Hobhouse, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, and P. B. Shelley
The letters contained in this volume have had a rather remarkable history. They were the property of Lord Broughton, better known as John Cam Hobhouse, the intimate friend and executor of Lord Byron, and through him came into the possession of his daughter, Lady Dorchester.
Lady Dorchester was an old friend of my father, and I made her acquaintance in 1876 or 1877. From that time onwards I was in very frequent communication with her about these papers, and she contemplated editing and publishing a selection of them; but there were many difficulties in the way, and she died in 1914 without carrying out her purpose.
In 1877 Lady Dorchester expressed a wish to have copies made, but was unwilling to entrust the letters to a stranger. I therefore undertook to do this myself, and had copied some 300, when my marriage and a journey abroad forced me to hand over the completion of the task to another copyist, who has since died. The copies were all returned to Lady Dorchester.
A few years later Lady Dorchester caused all these copies to be set up in type, and one or two proofs were struck off for her private use. I never read any of the letters again till after her death in 1914, and neither Mr. Prothero (Lord Ernle) nor Mr. Coleridge had access to them during the preparation of my edition of Byron, nor was any use made of any of Lady Dorchester's papers for the purpose of that work, the publication of which began in 1898, and ended in 1904.
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