The unpublished letters of Lord Byron Edited with a critical essay on the poet’s philosophy and character by H. S. Schultess-Young

8vo. pp. viii, 251. Signatures: [pi]2 a2 B-Q8 R6. Original cloth.

Suppressed by Richard Bentley before publication, with supposedly all but ten copies destroyed (T. G. Ehrsam, Major Byron. The incredible career of a literary forger. New York, 1951, p. 153, with locations).

Includes nineteen spurious letters forged (both textually and physically) by the notorious George de Gibler, also known as ‘Major Byron,’ whose output of Romantic spuria took in many of the most knowledgeable collectors and critics in the mid-century, and still infect biographical studies today: see Ehrsam, pp. 150–66, and T.J. Wise, The Ashley Library. A Catalogue of Printed Books, Manuscripts and Autograph Letters. London, 1922, vol. I, pp. 164-165 (‘only three or four copies are believed to have passed into circulation’).

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