Fletcher discusses five autographed poems by
Byron, discovered in the papers belonging to
Sara Sophia Fane, Fifth Countess of Jersey.
The poems were inscribed privately to Lady
Jersey. Other versions of the poems were later
published.MacDonald, D. L., ‘‘Childhood Abuse as Romantic
Reality: The Case of Lord Byron,’’ inLiterature and
Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 1–2, Spring–Summer 1994, pp.
24–48.
In discussing the sexual abuse that Byron suf-
fered at the hands of his maid when he was a
youngster (ages nine through eleven), Mac-
Donald assesses the effects of the abuse on
Byron’s poetry, observing that Byron’s fre-
quent return to the subject of premature aging
sprang from these experiences.
McGann, Jerome J., Introduction, inLord Byron: The
Major Works, Oxford University Press, 2000.
McGann offers a concise overview of Byron’s
life, major works, and critical reception.When We Two Parted