It is his clear-sightedness, his candour, his steely strength of will, the immediacy of his writing, his insolence and cynicism, his love of liberty, his hatred of hypocrisy, his originality, his rational enlightened toughness which attached Byron to the present age as much as to his own. Leslie Marchand's profound knowledge of his subject is unrivalled. His superb biography gives us an engrossing and utterly convincing portrait of a genius - a man who more than any other, fulfilled in his brillance, passion and creativity, the ideal of the Romantic Hero. One cannot but be won over by the sensitive, infinitely complex which Leslie Marchand uncovers... he gives us the essential Byron... The spell of this strange, unquiet, blazingly honest and infinitely endearing man, is powerful.

Selina Hastings. Daily Telegraph