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Don Juan sells despite Murray’s fears

A cartoon from 1823 of Byron in Venice, inspired by a small devil sitting on his shoulder, "scratching up ideas" for his poems.
“A noble poet, scratch­ing up his ideas” (1823): Byron sits at a table writ­ing on a sheet head­ed Il Lib­erale; he looks up for inspi­ra­tion, scratch­ing his head; this is also scratched by a web-winged, goat-legged Dev­il (‘Old Scratch’) who perch­es on the back of his chair, his left talons on the poet’s shoul­der. Byron, not car­i­ca­tured, is direct­ed to the left and wears a flow­ered dress­ing-gown with ungartered stock­ings. One of his many dogs (of spaniel type), its col­lar inscribed [By]ron., lies look­ing up at him, also scratch­ing its head, one paw on a vol­ume of Don Juan. The table is in a wide-open win­dow, through which is seen a com­pos­ite view of Venice

When Can­tos I and II of Don Juan were being pre­pared for the press, it was chiefly Murray’s advis­ers — espe­cial­ly Gif­ford — who kept up the lament about “so much beau­ty, so wan­ton­ly & per­verse­ly dis­fig­ured” by vers­es such as 129 and 130 of Can­to I that make jokes about cow-pox and syphilis and the par­o­dy of the Ten Com­mand­ments in Stan­zas 205–206 of Can­to I.

“Every one laments there­fore in a ten­fold degree the few pas­sages which mere­ly in kind­ness to your friends it was hoped you would have suf­fered to be replaced by oth­ers in which you would have excit­ed delight only… Do me the favour to make every improve­ment that you can upon the two first Can­tos of Don Juan & let me bring out the new Edi­tion in great force in the win­ter – In the opin­ion of the best Crit­ics the larg­er por­tion of them sur­pass all that you have writ­ten & the rest is deserv­ing there­fore of re-cast­ing or at least of re-con­sid­er­a­tion” (Mur­ray to Byron, 23 July 1819)

Mur­ray plead­ed with Byron to autho­rise cuts that could be incor­po­rat­ed in the re-issued edi­tions, which he pre­sum­ably had intend­ed to pub­lish under Byron’s name in his own imprint. But Byron would have none of it:

You are right – Gif­ford is right – Crabbe is right – Hob­house is right – you are all right – and I am all wrong – but do pray let me have that plea­sure. – Cut me up root and branch; quar­ter me in the Quar­ter­ly – send round my “dis­jec­ti mem­bra poet­ae” like those of the Levite’s Con­cu­bine – make me – if you will – a spec­ta­cle to men and angels – but don’t ask me to alter for I can’t – I am obsti­nate and lazy – and there’s the truth. – – – (Byron to Mur­ray, 12 August, 1819)

By late 1819 the fears in Murray’s office about the crit­i­cal response were begin­ing to sound more plau­si­ble. In August, Black­woods Mag­a­zine (known in the indus­try as “Black­guards..” accord­ing to Mur­ray) pub­lished an hys­ter­i­cal hatch­et-job on the Can­tos:

“…in the com­po­si­tion of which there unques­tion­ably a more thor­ough intense infu­sion of genius and vice, pow­er and profli­ga­cy, than in any which had ever before been writ­ten the Eng­lish or indeed in any mod­ern lan­guage… Love, hon­our, patri­o­tism, reli­gion are men­tioned only to be scoffed at and derid­ed as if their sole rest­ing place were or ought to be in the bosoms of fools. It appears in short as if this mis­er­able man hav­ing exhaust­ed every species of sen­su­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion hav­ing drained the cup of sin even to its bit­ter­est dregs, were resolved to shew us that he is no longer a human being even in his frail­ties but a cool uncon­cerned fiend, laugh­ing with a detestable glee over the whole of the bet­ter and worse ele­ments of which human life is com­posed…” (Black­woods Mag­a­zine, August 1819)

Tak­ing the actu­al verse only as a point of depar­ture, the review dreged-up a ver­sion of the rumors that had sur­round­ed the Byron sep­a­ra­tion three years ear­li­er, exag­ger­at­ed into melo­dra­ma:

“…It would not be an easy mat­ter to per­suade any Man who has any knowl­edge of the nature of Woman, that a female such as Lord Byron has him­self described his wife to be, would rash­ly or hasti­ly or light­ly sep­a­rate her­self from the love which she had once been inspired for such a man as he is, or was. Had he not heaped insult upon insult and scorn upon scorn — had he not forced the iron of his con­tempt into her very soul — there is no woman of del­i­ca­cy and virtue as he admit­ted Lady Byron to be who would not have hoped all things and suf­fered all things from one, her love of whom must been inwo­ven with so many exalt­ing ele­ments of deli­cious pride and deli­cious humil­i­ty. To offend the love of such a woman was wrong but might be for­giv­en; to desert her unman­ly — but he might have and wiped for ever from her eyes the tears of her deser­tion; but to injure and to desert and then to turn back and wound her wid­owed pri­va­cy with unhal­lowed strains of cold-blood­ed mock­ery — was bru­tal­ly fiendish­ly mean.” (Ibid.)

It was only the ear­li­est and most intem­per­ate of many sim­i­lar crit­i­cisms of the close asso­ci­a­tion of poet­ic beau­ty (”genius”) and vice in the verse that fol­lowed over the next few years in the lit­er­ary press. From Raven­na, Byron dashed off sev­er­al pages of injured and some­what spe­cious rebut­tal, assort­ed with renewed attack on Southey the Lak­ers, but even­tu­al­ly decid­ed not to respond.

“It really is a mistaken notion…”

Mur­ray tried to jol­ly Bry­on along, not­ing that the poem sold well own­ing to its “genius”, despite the crti­cism

“It real­ly is a mis­tak­en notion that Don Juan has not been well received – the Sale has been less­ened by an out­ra­geous out­cry against some parts of it but its esti­ma­tion in point of Genius car­ries your Lord­ship high­er than ever & its cir­cu­la­tion will be every day increas­ing.” (Mur­ray to Byron on 16 Novem­ber, 1819)

Although Mur­ray — no doubt to his sur­prise — even­tu­al­ly won an injunc­tion against the pirates, he did not press it to enforce his copy­right over Don Juan. The rea­son he gave is that he would have to reaveal the name of the author: which hard­ly seems a dra­mat­ic rev­e­la­tion giv­en that Byron’s author­ship was an open secret.

The stronger rea­sons were, no doubt, com­mer­cial. Mur­ray admit­ted that he could still make a tidy prof­it by bring­ing out a more afford­able qua­si-autho­rized edi­tion, even if he had to throw in a “Glass of Gin” with every pur­chase. Still, it’s clear he was not keen to release them under his own imprint because he remained uncom­for­t­at­ble with their con­tent. He refused Byron’s offer to return the mon­ey he had paid for the copy­right and asked for more Can­tos, too (Byron had com­plet­ed Can­tos III and IV in Novem­ber 1819).

“I admire the poem beyond all mea­sure & am sup­port­ed in this esti­ma­tion by every man of judg­ment in the king­dom – who wish for a few alter­ations mere­ly to give wings to the rest & so far am I indis­posed to receive back the Copy Mon­ey – that I would not take dou­ble the sum if it were offered to me – the pirate edi­tion is not coun­te­nanced by the book­sellers & if it were or had any impor­tant sale I would sell mine for noth­ing & give every pur­chas­er a Glass of Gin into the bar­gain… my process [enforc­ing the injunc­tion against the rad­i­cal pub­lish­ers] was aban­doned the moment I found that the authors name must be giv­en up – wch is rather absurd for this puts an end to all anony­mous writ­ing – if a ras­cal choos­es to print Waver­ley for instance – the book­seller <ca> or pro­pri­etor can have no redress unless he dis­close the name of the Author [ie. Sir Wal­ter Scott]. I have print­ed Don in 8 vo to match the oth­er Poems & again in a Small­er form – the lat­ter not yet pub­lished – of the Octa­vo I have sold 3000 Copies so you see we have cir­cu­la­tion in us – I want noth­ing so much as a third & fourth Can­to which I entreat you to com­pleat for me as pro­gres­sive to the remain­ing Twelve… there­fore Moore – I pray you Moore – “it is the uni­ver­sal deci­sion that in beau­ties Don Juan sur­pass­es all that has pre­ced­ed it” – Can you keep up to this?” (Mur­ray to Byron 24 Jan 1820)

Two years lat­er, how­ev­er, Murray’s enthu­si­asm for Don Juan had evap­o­rat­ed. When in 1821 he final­ly, reluc­tant­ly released Can­tos III-V — with many errors in the text — he again includ­ed only the printer’s name, refus­ing the “coun­te­nance” of his own name.

Byron was angry about the delay, the errors and the “dis­par­age­ment”.

“Mur­ray – you are an excel­lent fel­low –a lit­tle vari­able – & some­what of the opin­ion of every body you talk with – (par­tic­u­lar­ly the last per­son you see) but a good fel­low for all that – yet nev­er­the­less – I can’t tell you that I think you have act­ed very gal­lant­ly by that per­se­cut­ed book – which has made it’s way entire­ly by itself – with­out the light of your coun­te­nance – or any kind of encour­age­ment – crit­i­cal – or bib­liopo­lar. – You dis­par­aged the last three can­tos to me – & kept them back {above} a year – but I have heard from Eng­land – that (notwith­stand­ing the errors of the press) they are well thought of -“ (Byron to Mur­ray, 3 Novem­ber 1821)

With­in a year Byron had moved to anoth­er pub­lish­er.

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Early reception of Don Juan

“My Wife!” George IV, in the title role of Mozart’s opera sur­prised by the sud­den arrival of his wife, Car­o­line, as Don­na Anna, late­ly returned from Italy, dur­ing the wed­ding feast scene, at which a num­ber of bare breast­ed women are present; on the left, Lord Castlereagh, play­ing the role of Lep­orel­lo, holds a long list of the King’s female con­quests. Click for a larg­er size.

When the first two Can­tos of Don Juan appeared on 15 July, 1819, read­ers imme­di­ate­ly guessed — many had antic­i­pat­ed — the the author­ship. The next day, the Morn­ing Post car­ried a brief arti­cle sub-titled “Lord Byron’s New Poem of ‘Don Juan’”.

Still, the anonymi­ty of Murray’s pub­li­ca­tion and the increas­ing sever­i­ty of gov­ern­ment cen­sor­ship implied the pub­lish­er knew the poem, if not sup­pressed, might be found blas­phe­mous or pos­si­bly sedi­tious and denied copy­right. A recent bizarre Court deci­sion on Southey’s pirat­ed “Wat Tyler” (a rev­o­lu­tion­ary dra­ma from Southey’s rad­i­cal youth) con­firmed that such mate­r­i­al would not be pro­tect­ed by the Courts or dig­ni­fied by copy­right. Such offend­ing works were, con­se­quent­ly, liable to wide­spread dis­tri­b­u­tion in cheap “pirat­ed” edi­tions; pre­cise­ly the oppo­site of the Crown’s inten­tion. 

With­in a week the Rad­i­cal press had tak­en notice. William Hone, a well known pam­phle­teer, rushed out a tract high­light­ing the blas­phe­my and immor­tal­i­ty of the verse — with exam­ples — while enlist­ing Byron’s its pub­li­ca­tion in his own, thus far suc­cess­ful, attacks on censorship.The first com­plete rip-offs of Don Juan prob­a­bly appeared (they are undat­ed) with­in a month or so: the first an edi­tion by Onwhyn, a rad­i­cal pub­lish­er that, at four shillings in Octa­vo for­mat, was one-eighth the price of Murray’s Quar­to edi­tion.1 By Octo­ber 1819, Mur­ray was oblig­ed to fol­low suit with an Octa­vo ver­sion at nine shillings and six­pence in order to hold onto the con­tin­u­ing strong mar­ket for Byron. 

The ear­ly crit­i­cal reac­tion to the poems — like the fist reac­tions of Byron’s friends — was marked by enthu­si­asm and admi­ra­tion, only mod­er­ate­ly qual­i­fied by admis­sions of moral ‘license’. The Morn­ing Post arti­cle men­tioned above offered a pre-emp­tive defence of the poem that antic­i­pat­ed with remark­able accu­ra­cy the attacks that would fol­low; set­ting its read­ers’ minds at ease while coy­ly, how­ev­er, not rec­om­mend­ing the pur­chase of the book:

“The great­est anx­i­ety hav­ing been excit­ed with respect to the appear­ance of this Poem, we shall lay a few stan­zas before our read­ers, mere­ly observ­ing that, what­ev­er its char­ac­ter, report has been com­plete­ly erro­neous respect­ing it. If it is not (and truth com­pels us to admit it is not) the most moral pro­duc­tion in the world, but more in the “Bep­po” style, yet is there noth­ing of the sort which Scan­dal with her hun­dred toungues whis­pered abroad, and malig­ni­ty joy­ful­ly believed and repeat­ed, con­tained in it. ’Tis sim­ply a tale and right mer­rie con­ceit, flighty, wild, extrav­a­gant — immoral too, it must be con­fessed; but no arrows are lev­elled at inno­cent bosoms, no sacred fam­i­ly peace invad­ed; and they must have a strange self-con­scious­ness who can dis­cov­er their own por­tait in any part of it. Thus much, though we can­not advo­cate the book, truth and jus­tice ordain us to declare…” (The Morn­ing Post, Fri­day 16 July, 1819)

The con­ser­v­a­tive cir­itc, par­lia­men­tar­i­an and Admi­ral­ty Sec­re­tary, John Wil­son Cro­ker — whose mean review in the Quar­ter­ly Review of Keats’ Endymion was held by Shel­ley, at least, to have has­tened the poet’s death — wrote to Mur­ray, three days after the first pub­li­ca­tion

“I am agree­ably dis­ap­point­ed at find­ing ‘Don Juan’ very lit­tle offen­sive. It is by no means worse than ‘Childe Harold,’ which it resem­bles as com­e­dy does tragedy. There is a prodi­gious pow­er of ver­si­fi­ca­tion in it, and a great deal of very good pleas­antry. There is also some mag­nif­i­cent poet­ry, and the ship­wreck, though too long, and in parts very dis­gust­ing, is on the whole fine­ly described. In short, I think it will not lose him any char­ac­ter as a poet, and, on the score of moral­i­ty, I con­fess it seems a more inno­cent pro­duc­tion than ‘Childe Harold’”

Two days after pub­li­ca­tion, in the con­ser­v­a­tive Lit­er­ary Gazette, William Jer­dan declared Don Juan to be “an exceed­ing­ly clever and enter­tain­ing poem,” that was “wit­ty if a lit­tle licen­tious, and delight­ful if not very moral,”. He con­clud­ed that Byron’s “defence of the moral­i­ty of his work is so good-humoured that we must wish it more sound, and after all for­give him.”

The Exam­in­er, a reform news­pa­per start­ed by the the broth­ers John and Leigh Hunt (lat­er pub­lish­ers of Can­tos V-XVI) print­ed a lengthy review three months after the pub­li­ca­tion — when the work was already being pirat­ed. Poss­bi­ly writ­ten by Leigh Hunt, it offered high praise and a psy­cho­log­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion of the nov­el style of the poem.

“Some per­sons con­sid­er this the finest work of Lord Byron, or at least that in which he dis­plays most pow­er. It is at all events the most extra­or­di­nary that he has yet pub­lished. …The ground-work (if we may so speak of a stile) is the satir­i­cal and humor­ous; but you are some­times sur­prised and moved by a touch­ing piece of human nature, and again star­tled and pained by the sud­den tran­si­tion from love­li­ness or grandeur to ridicule or the mock-hero­ic…. 

It is not dif­fi­cult to account for this het­ero­ge­neous mix­ture, for the bard has fur­nished us with the key to his own mind. His ear­ly hopes were blight­ed; and his dis­ap­point­ment vents itself in sat­i­riz­ing absur­di­ties which rouse his indig­na­tion… But his genius is not nat­u­ral­ly satyri­cal; he breaks out there­fore into those fre­quent veins of pas­sion and true feel­ing of which we have just giv­en spec­i­mens… and it is to get rid of such painful and “thick com­ing” rec­ol­lec­tions that he dash­es away and relieves him­self by get­ting into anoth­er train of ideas, how­ev­er incon­gru­ous or vio­lent­ly con­trast­ed with the for­mer…

The Exam­in­er defend­ed what had been called “immoral­i­ty” as an accu­rate depic­tion of life rather than mod­els of behv­ior:

Don Juan is accused of being en a “immoral work” which we can­not at all dis­cov­er… If stu­pid and self­ish par­ents will make up match­es between per­sons whom dif­fer­ence of age or dis­po­si­tion dis­qual­i­fies for mutu­al affec­tion, they must take the con­se­quences:- but we do not think it fair that a poet should be exclaimed against as a pro­mot­er of nup­tial infi­deli­ty because he tells them what those con­se­quences are….  Which then, we would ask, are the immoral writ­ings — those which, by mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the laws of nature, lead to false views of moral­i­ty and con­se­quent licen­tious­ness, or those, which ridicule and point out the effects of absurd con­tra­dic­tion of human feel­ings and pas­sions, and help to bring about a ref­or­ma­tion of such prac­tis­es? 

The Quar­ter­ly Review, pub­lished by Mur­ray and edit­ed by the cen­so­ri­ous William Gif­ford remained mute, as did the Whig­gish (lib­er­al) Edin­burgh Review.

Next: Sales of the Can­tos I & II

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Publication of Cantos I & II

The oak of Eng­land, weighed down by George IV and his mis­tress­es swing­ing on its branch­es, being under­mined by dev­ils (and by the Liv­er­pool Min­istry), watched by an appalled John Bull. Sep­tem­ber 1820 Hand-coloured etch­ing

The path to the first pub­li­ca­tion of Can­tos I & II of Don Juan was unlike that of any of Byron’s ear­li­er verse. It is worth our atten­tion because it reminds us — who now see only its nov­el tone, bril­liant verse, sar­casm and fun — that this new poem had explo­sive poten­tial dur­ing a year of rapid dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the foetid pol­i­tics of late Regency Eng­land. The tra­vails of pub­li­ca­tion recall the dif­fi­cult per­son­al­i­ties and mixed inter­ests of Byron, his pub­lish­er and his Lon­don friends. They also explain much about the expec­ta­tions and ambi­tions Byron had for his great­est poem as he con­tin­ued work­ing on it over the next four years.  

When they first saw the man­u­script of Can­to I, Byron’s friends — John Cam Hob­house, Scrope Davies and John Hookham Frere — had, accord­ing to Hob­house, been struck with admi­ra­tion for “the Car­rav­ag­gio tal­ent dis­played through­out…”. It’s a good metaphor for the pol­ished, high-con­trast, man­nered but ener­getic and earthy voice of the first Can­to. Nor did they think, at first, that Mur­ray, whose busi­ness had thrived on Byron’s poet­ry and dra­ma, would object to the robust tone:

 “– You shall hear all in a day or two. Mur­ray, I believe, would pub­lish a Fan­ny Hill or an Age of Rea­son of your’s – The Hitch will not come thence – so be tran­quil –”  (Hob­house to Byron on 29 Dec. 1818 on receipt of Don Juan Can­to I man­u­script.)

Dou­glas Kin­naird, a friend and lat­er busi­ness man­ag­er, was also com­pli­men­ta­ry and attuned to the poltics of pub­lish­ing, although ready to ‘clip’:

“… I have read your Poems Don Juan is exquis­ite – It must be cut for the Syphilis – When we have pound­ed Mur­ray I will not fail to write by the same Post – Your def­i­n­i­tion of May is a great truth … I think your Poem is just­ly bit­ter & exquis­ite­ly humor­ous – You will have the world on your side – The rev­o­lu­tion is com­ing – Rely on it –” (Kin­naird to Byron, 29 Decem­ber, 1818)

But with­in a month Hob­house and crew — Kin­naird less so — had changed their tune: they now advised strong­ly against pub­li­ca­tion. Hob­house was apre­hen­sive about the orig­i­nal mot­to of Can­to I (“Domes­ti­ca Fac­ta”) that he took to be a dec­la­ra­tion that the poem was, as they con­vinced them­selves, an attack on Annabel­la and per­haps her moth­er and advi­sors. They were all appalled, said Hob­house, by

“the licen­tious­ness and in some cas­es down­right inde­cen­cy of many stan­zas and of the whole turn of the poem – from the flings at reli­gion – and from the slash­ing right and left at oth­er wor­thy writ­ers of the day”.

They were mys­ti­fied by the swing­ing attacks on Southey, and Lak­er Poets in the Ded­i­ca­tion which, they said, attrib­uted these minor poets an crit­i­cal impor­tance they did not (then) enjoy. 

What had hap­pened in ear­ly 1819 to hard­en them against pub­lish­ing the poem that sev­er­al includ­ing Mur­ray thought was Byron’s great­est “in some parts?” It may have been fears about the wors­en­ing polit­i­cal cli­mate at the end of 1818 to which the Prince Regent’s speech (above) referred. Kinnaird’s remark that “the rev­o­lu­tion is com­ing…” would have been seen by Byron’s oth­er friends as a chill­ing, if dis­tant, prospect. Per­haps it was also some­thing clos­er to home, at least for Hob­house.

In his Jan­u­ary 1819 let­ter, Hob­house couched his strong rec­om­men­da­tion for “total sup­pres­sion” in terms that sug­gest his great­est con­cern was not Byron’s rep­u­ta­tion as a poet but his own polti­cial car­reer:

“I have now gone through the objec­tions which appear <to so> so mixed up with the whole work espe­cial­ly to those who are in the secret of the domes­ti­ca fac­ta that I know not any any ampu­ta­tion will save it: more par­tic­u­lar­ly as the objec­tion­able parts are in point of wit humour & poet­ry the very best beyond all doubt of the whole poem – This con­sid­er­a­tion, there­fore, makes me sum up with stren­u­ous­ly advis­ing a total sup­pres­sion of Don Juan – I shall take advan­tage of the kind per­mis­sion you give me to keep back the pub­li­ca­tion until after the elec­tion in Feb­ru­ary: and this delay will allow time for your answer and deci­sion” (Hob­house to Byron, 5 Jan­u­ary, 1819).

Byron was in no posi­tion, from Venice, to deny Hobhouse’s pre­sump­tion of his “kind per­mis­sion”. In any case, the pro­posed delay gave him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to add some more vers­es to Can­to I and to com­plete Can­to II of Don Juan. By May of 1819, how­ev­er, he was becom­ing fed up with the wheedling on from his Lon­don friends on the texts. He agreed to mak­ing cuts in the Ded­i­ca­tion but… 

“You sha’n’t make Can­ti­cles of my Can­tos. The poem will please if it is live­ly – if it is stu­pid it will fail but I will have none of your damned cut­ting & slash­ing. – If you please you may pub­lish anony­mous­ly it will per­haps be bet­ter; – but I will bat­tle my way against them all – like a Por­cu­pine.” (Byron to Mur­ray, 6 April 1819 from Venice)

He was rest­less; feel­ing uncom­fort­able about his dis­solute life in grub­by Venice. He was wor­ried that ser­ven­tism to a young, bare­ly-mar­ried woman — Tere­sa Guic­ci­oli — was hope­less and a bit déclassé. Nev­er keen on cor­rect­ing proofs or mak­ing fair-copies — which he found bor­ing work — he declined to receive any fur­ther proofs of Don Juan after June and pressed Mur­ray to pub­lish. 

After receiv­ing the manuscript(s) of Can­to II, Mur­ray was able to see the poem at some­thing clos­er to its prop­er scale — more than 400 stan­zas — and was a lit­tle mol­li­fied that the naughty and revolt­ing bits were much less promi­nent than the pas­sages he found “exceed­ing­ly good”: 

I think you may mod­i­fy or sub­sti­tute oth­ers for, the lines on Romil­ly whose death should save him – – the verse in the Ship­wreck – LXXXI the Mas­ters Mates dis­ease – I pray you oblit­ter­ate as well the sup­pres­sion of Urine – these Ladies may not read — the Ship­wreck is a lit­tle too par­tic­u­lar & out of pro­por­tion to the rest of the pic­ture – but if you do any thing it must be with extreme cau­tion – for it is exceed­ing­ly good – & the pow­er with which you alter­nate­ly make our blood thrill & our Sides Shake is very great – noth­ing in all poet­ry is fin­er than your descrip­tion of the two females in Can­to II – it is nature speak­ing in the most exquis­ite poet­ry – but think of the effects of such seduc­tive poet­ry? (Mur­ray to Byron, 28 May, 1819)

Byron, despite doubts about the wis­dom of the jour­ney, was on the road to Raven­na, where Tere­sa lay ill, in his high-wheeled Napoleon­ic coach. From Bologna he sent Mur­ray a rude reply:

It will there­fore be idle in him [Hob­house] or you to wait for any fur­ther answers – or returns of proofs from Venice – as I have direct­ed that no Eng­lish let­ters be sent after me. – The pub­li­ca­tion can be pro­ceed­ed in with­out, and I am already sick of your remarks – to which I think not the least atten­tion ought to be paid. – – – (Byron to Mur­ray, 7 June 1819).

Mur­ray gave up. In con­cert with Hob­house, he dropped the Ded­i­ca­tion alto­geth­er — Byron had final­ly agreed to that — and two stan­zas of Can­to I that Byron had not agreed to drop. The first was stan­za 15 on the sui­cide of Sir Samuel Romi­ly — whose West­min­ster seat in Par­lia­ment Hob­house was then about to con­test; the sec­ond — now stan­za 131 — on syphilis. He also cen­sored with aster­isks two good jokes about the his­to­ry of “the pox” in stan­zas 129 and 130.

The removal of the “Romil­ly” verse sketched the bat­tle-lines already being drawn between the poet, his friends and his pub­lish­er. For Byron, the five lines he insert­ed on Romilly’s sui­cide was a sav­age thrill: the lawmaker’s sui­cide by cut­throat razor had been an act of Neme­sis, he claimed. In con­text, they fit with the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Inez, but it was noneth­less bloody-mind­ed. Byron knew from reli­able sources that Romil­ly had act­ed in igno­rance, not dis­hon­or­ably, in agree­ing at first to advise his wife, Annabel­la, on their sep­a­ra­tion. Some­one who had more insight into him­self and his anger than Byron might have dropped it with­out, as Byron’s friends said, dam­ag­ing the poem. Still, if Don Juan was to be issued anony­mous­ly, why should his editors/advisors be so par­tic­u­lar about these lines? The plau­si­ble rea­son Hob­house offered to Byron — in a let­ter writ­ten on the day of pub­li­ca­tion — was that it might hurt Romilly’s fam­i­ly: 

“The man has left chil­dren whom I know you did not mean to annoy; and though we must both of us think that he has been bepuffed at a ter­ri­ble rate yet the death of both father and moth­er has left six poor crea­tures and three or four of them grown up with lit­tle sup­port except their father’s rep­u­ta­tion; and whether that rep­u­ta­tion be over­rat­ed or not, I am con­vinced that at this moment you would not wish to impair the lega­cy as far as they are con­cerned” (Hob­house to Byron on 15 July, 1819.)

But Hob­house was not being can­did — as Byron must have known. Drop­ping the stan­za attack­ing Romil­ly served his inter­ests as an elec­toral can­di­date as much as any oth­er. He had failed in his first, Feb­ru­ary 1819, bid to win Romilly’s Par­lia­men­tary seat of West­min­ster on behalf of ‘rad­i­cal’ reform. But he had come a cred­itable sec­ond in the bal­lot and planned to try again. It would look bad for him to be asso­ci­at­ed — as he would be — with Byron’s attack on the once-dis­tin­guished for­mer Mem­ber for that con­stituen­cy. Hob­house was a rad­i­cal who — like Byron who decid­ed­ly was not  — want­ed no over­turn­ing of the social order that pro­tect­ed Romilly’s name and saved him from a suicide’s unhal­lowed grave. 

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The Comet and the Bomb

[This is a draft of the first parts of an intro­duc­tion to the Anno­tat­ed Can­tos I & II that I will pub­lish in the next few months — before the 200th anniver­sary of their first pub­li­ca­tion — accom­pa­nied by a read­ing of both Can­tos. Your com­ments and sug­ges­tions are wel­come]

“Noth­ing so dif­fi­cult as a begin­ning”    Don Juan, III, 1

The Comet

On 1 July, 1819 a comet brighter than all but a hand­ful of stars — more vis­i­ble in the ear­ly decades of the Nine­teeth Cen­tu­ry, before elec­tric, or even wide­spread gas street illu­mi­na­tion — appeared in the skies of Europe and North Amer­i­ca.  John Keats, among oth­ers, report­ed see­ing it. The Morn­ing Post gushed  (14 July, 1819)

“… All the stars emit­ted their bright­est lus­tre, the Comet moved with supe­ri­or glo­ry among them all, ‘appar­ent queen’ with its tiara of light.”.

There was no place for super­sti­tion in a cen­tu­ry when — or in a coun­try where — sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and art took some of their great­est leaps. Still, any fears that the Comet’s appear­ance might her­ald trou­ble in the state or momen­tous events would have been entire­ly jus­ti­fied. In the years 1819 and 1820, the Unit­ed King­dom nar­row­ly skirt­ed social dis­as­ter and bare­ly avoid­ed avoid­ed a con­sti­tu­tion­al one — cer­tain­ly rebel­lion, per­haps rev­o­lu­tion.  Iron­i­cal­ly, too, an “appar­ent queen”, more earthy than celes­tial, held a star­ring role in the dra­ma.

On the same page as its report of the Comet, the Post car­ried news of the unpop­u­lar Prince Regent’s speech at the close of the Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion. It was filled with Crown and Gov­ern­ment men­ace aimed at pop­u­lar unrest and the — most­ly bour­geois — demand for enfran­chise­ment, legal reform and tax relief.

His Roy­al High­ness has nat­u­ral­ly observed with great con­cern the efforts which have been late­ly made in some of the man­u­fac­tur­ing dis­tricts to take advan­tage of local dis­tress to cre­ate a spir­it of dis­af­fec­tion to the insti­tu­tions and Gov­ern­ment of the coun­try. Anx­ious to pro­mote the wel­fare and pros­per­i­ty of all class­es of his Majesty’s sub­jects… his Roy­al High­ness assures us of his wise, judi­cious , and man­ly deter­mi­na­tion, to employ for that pur­pose the pow­er entrust­ed to him by law. He relies at the same time on the patri­o­tism of Mem­bers, and has no doubt that one their return to their respec­tive coun­ties they will zeal­ous­ly coöper­ate with the Mag­is­tra­cy in defeat­ing “the machi­na­tions of those whose projects, if suc­cess­ful, would only aggra­vate the evils they pro­fess to rem­e­dy, and who, under the pre­tence of Reform, have real­ly no oth­er object but the sub­ver­sion of our hap­py Con­sti­tu­tion.” (The Morn­ing Post, 12 July, 1819)

Unrest was broad and, in some places, ran deep. The King­dom had seen explo­sive pop­u­la­tion growth, faster than any­where in Europe: num­bers dou­bled to 17 mil­lion in the first fifty years of the cen­tu­ry with a peak growth rate in the decade to 1821 of 16 per­cent. It must have strained every pri­vate resource. Two fifths of the pop­u­la­tion was under fif­teen years of age: most­ly depen­dent and in need of edu­ca­tion, nutri­tion, cloth­ing, hous­ing and care.  Poor har­vests and dis­tri­b­u­tion dis­rupt­ed by the long war led to seri­ous food short­ages in some places; mad­we worse by pol­i­cy error and bad luck. There had been a fall in sea­son­al tem­per­a­tures made worse by vol­canic explo­sions on the oth­er side of the globe: 1816 was known as the “year with­out a sum­mer” across Europe. Cor­rupt poli­cies such as the Corn Laws that pro­hib­it­ed imports of price-com­pet­i­tive grain made the food sup­ply worse.

Twen­ty years of war had wreaked a drea­ful toll on UK fam­i­lies: the esti­mat­ed death toll of 210,000 sol­diers and sailors was com­pa­ra­ble to the loss­es of The Great War in 1914–18. Then, the rapid demo­bil­i­sa­tion of the armed-forces — the largest in the UK’s his­to­ry up to that point — con­tributed to wide­spread unem­ploy­ment, fam­i­ly dis­rup­tion and out­breaks of epi­dem­ic dis­ease. The wars also left Eng­land with unprece­dent­ed tax lev­els (23 per cent of GDP) and a huge nation­al debt.  The Tory gov­ern­ment was com­pelled by Par­lia­ment to abol­ish Pitt’s income tax that had sup­port­ed the fight­ing and Castlereagh’s gen­er­ous cash hand­outs to reac­tionary Euro­pean allies. But that only pushed direct tax­es high­er, hit­ting hard­est those on the low­est incomes.

Gillarays cartoon of an inebriated George, Prince Regent

“The Prince Regent” (George Cruick­shank) — drunk­en and dis­solute

The “spir­it of dis­af­fec­tion” to which the Prince euphemisti­cal­ly referred had been evi­dent in the riots of the so-called “Lud­dites” — mill work­ers whose griev­ances relat­ed to poor wages and poor man­age­ment rather than to new tech­nol­o­gy — six of whom had been hanged in June 1816 (Byron’s only note­able speech in Par­lia­ment was a rather pur­ple defense of the ‘machine break­ers’). The repres­sion halt­ed the Lud­dites but foment­ed a wider move­ment that the rad­i­cal William Cob­bett would exploit in his ‘rur­al rides’.

Then in Novem­ber and Decem­ber of 1816 there were two pub­lic meet­ings at Spa Fields in Lon­don to work-up a peti­tion to the Prince Regent for uni­ver­sal male suf­frage and secret bal­lots. Some of the speak­ers at the sec­ond meet­ing led the crowd on a march to the Roy­al Exchange where lead­ers were arrest­ed and charged with Trea­son. They were acquit­ted when the gov­ern­ments’ informer among the lead­ers of the march turned out to be a gov­ern­ment agent. Still, Par­lia­ment react­ed by sus­pend­ing Habeas Cor­pus — a legal free­dom pro­tect­ing against arbi­trary arrest — and ban­ning meet­ings of more than 50 peo­ple for a year. 

Still the indus­tri­al poor would not shut-up. In 1817, a “March of the Blan­ke­teers” from Man­ches­ter to Lon­don saw scores of legal­ly-small groups set out bear­ing a blan­ket on their back to demand the Prince Regent grant them relief from pover­ty wages. In June that same year there was a ‘ris­ing’ of tex­tile work­ers in Pen­trich, near Not­ing­ham where. Once again, a gov­ern­ment agent was iden­ti­fied as a provo­ca­teur. The indus­tri­al and piece-work­ers of Ire­land, known by their mark as ‘Rib­boneers’ were also orga­niz­ing march­es and protests. In this com­bustible cli­mate, the Prince’s obtuse threats against con­sti­tu­tion­al reform were incen­di­ary.

Just weeks after his speech, the Prince’s threats were giv­en mur­der­ous effect at St Peter’s Fields, Man­ches­ter. On August 16, 1819, the Mag­is­trates whom the Regent had ordered to his front line, fool­ish­ly sent an ama­teur cav­al­ry of yeomen, used for home defense and pub­lic order, to arrest a pop­u­lar speak­er at a Reform meet­ing. In their charge, the yomen killed eleven and caused gen­er­al pan­ic. The “Peter­loo Mas­sacre” — a mock­ing ref­er­ence to the bloody defeat of Napoleon — turned protest into near revolt in the North and vig­or­ous protest in the South from the reform-mind­ed mid­dle class as well as the work­ing class. 

Lord Liverpool’s Tory gov­ern­ment, assailed by both the rad­i­cal and main-stream press for the bungling repres­sion of the Man­ches­ter mag­is­trates, react­ed with alarm to the alleged ‘riots’ of con­sti­tu­tion­al reform­ers and dis­af­fect­ed work­ers. Castlereagh, on behalf of the gov­ern­ment, secured the pas­sage of the qua­si-tyran­ni­cal “Six Acts” whose pre­am­ble declared that “every meet­ing for rad­i­cal reform is an overt act of trea­son­able con­spir­a­cy against the King and his gov­ern­ment”. Among oth­er out­rages to lib­er­ty, the laws banned “sedi­tious” pub­lic meet­ings, “blas­phe­mous and sedi­tious libels” and increased the tax­es on print­ed mate­ri­als, so that any print­ed pam­phet priced at less than 6 pence would be taxed an addi­tion­al 4 pence.

The Bomb

It might seem this was not the best time for the most pres­ti­gious of Tory pub­lish­ers, John Mur­ray, to release a poem with almost as much vis­i­bil­i­ty as the Comet that, in the view of con­tem­po­rary read­ers, mocked the moral pre­ten­sions of the Regency Estab­lish­ment — both Gov­ern­ment and Church. 

Yet that was what Mur­ray chose to do — tak­ing a bare­ly-cal­cu­la­ble risk — by pub­lish­ing Can­tos I & II of Byron’s Don Juan in mid-July, 1819. He por­trayed it, accu­rate­ly, as the pub­lish­ing equiv­a­lent of cross­ing the Rubi­con or, maybe, lob­bing an artillery shell into West­min­ster. On the day after it appeared on book­sellers’ shelves he wrote to his exiled author:

“La Sort est jet­té – Don Juan was pub­lished yes­ter­day, and hav­ing fired the Bomb – here I am out of the way of its explo­sion – its pub­li­ca­tion has excit­ed a very great degree of inter­est – pub­lic <opin­ion ha> expec­ta­tion hav­ing risen up like the sur­round­ing boats on the Thames when a first rate is struck from its Stocks” (Mur­ray to Byron, July 16, 1819. ‘La Sort est jet­té’ [cor­rect­ly, ‘le sort en est jet­té’] means ‘the die is cast’, as in a gam­bling game. Accord­ing to one of Caesar’s com­pan­ions this is rough­ly what he said, quot­ing the Greek play­wright Menan­der, when he crossed the Rubi­con riv­er into Italy in 49 BCE. In both cas­es it refers to an action whose out­come is ‘up-in-the-air’. By a ‘first rate.. struck from its stocks’ Mur­ray mean the launch of a cap­i­tal ship).

Well of course pub­lic expec­ta­tion had risen up… Mur­ray had delib­er­ate­ly stirred it. His cau­tion relat­ed to the impact of some parts of the poem on his author’s rep­u­ta­tion (Murray’s cap­i­tal, too). But anony­mous pub­li­ca­tion was hid­ing Byron and his pub­lish­ing busi­ness “in the open”. Byron’s author­ship would be an open secret: he had told Byron in March that there were “the great­est expec­ta­tions” about Don Juan. Indeed, Mur­ray had been prompt­ing these expec­ta­tion for at least two weeks before the book’s appear­ance with a series of promi­ment and mys­te­ri­ous adver­tise­ments in news­pa­pers such as the Morn­ing Post and The Lon­don Times. Rather like the teas­ing press announce­ments we see today from tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies in advance of their “Keynote” pre­sen­ta­tions of new gad­gets, Murray’s pub­lic­i­ty said not much, but plen­ty. Byron’s friend from uni­ver­si­ty days, Cam Hob­house, described the cam­paign in a let­ter to Byron on the day Don Juan it appeared.

“It was announced thus – Don Juan.. to mor­row. There’s a way for you!! To mor­row The Comet. to mor­row! Mr Mur­ray man­aged so well that Mazep­pa was tak­en for Don Juan and gread­i­ly bought up like “that abom­inable book the scan­dalous mag­a­zine”. But Don Juan tomor­row, unde­ceived those who thought they had got their pen­ny­worth to day –“ (Hob­house to Byron on the morn­ing of pub­li­ca­tion, 15 July, 1819)

Here, for exam­ple, is the top of the front page of The Morn­ing Post of Mon­day 12 July, 1819.

London Morning Post 12 July 1819

“On Thurs­day, DON JUAN. — Sold by all Book­sellers”

Exploit­ing this clever cam­paign of 19th Cen­tu­ry viral adver­tis­ing, Mur­ray issued 1500 copies of Can­tos I and II “anony­mous­ly” on 15 July, 1819 in a large (Quar­to sized: about 12 inch­es by 10 inch­es), rel­a­tive­ly expen­sive vol­ume with­out the name of the pub­lish­er or the author. 

In the heat­ed polti­cial con­text of mid-1819, the anonymi­ty of the book was itself a draw:

“This will make our wiseacres think that there is poi­son for King Queen & Dauphin in every page and will irri­tate pub­lic pruri­en­cy to a com­plete pri­apism” (Hob­house to Byron, 15 July, 1819)

Mur­ray was can­ny enough to see that the risk of scan­dal (or worse) could be turned to his own com­mer­cial advan­tage. The repres­sive Castlereagh laws on “blas­phe­mous and sedi­tious libel” were still months off. Before the Man­ches­ter ‘riots’, the legal frame­work was not yet pitched against pub­li­ca­tion. What­ev­er he felt about the impro­pri­ety of some stan­zas or lines — what­ev­er his ‘court’ of read­ers and Byron’s Lon­don friends said about the ‘unpub­lish­able’ and lam­en­ta­ble ‘infe­lic­i­ties’ — Mur­ray knew there was every chance Byron’s new work would sell.

Don Juan was, for the most part, just the sort of thing he had asked Byron to pro­duce a year ear­li­er:

“May I hope that yr Lord­ship will favour me with some work to open my Cam­paign in Novem­ber with have you not anoth­er live­ly tale like Bep­po – or will you not give me some prose in three Vol­umes – all the adven­tures that you have under­gone, seen, heard of or imag­ined with your reflec­tions on life & Man­ners” (Mur­rray to Byron 7 July 1818) 

So Hob­house is prob­a­bly not wrong to sug­gest (above, let­ter of 15 July) — per­haps he knew — that Mur­ray engi­neered a com­mer­cial sleight of hand when he issued Byron’s Mazep­pa and an Ode on Venice two weeks ear­li­er on 1 July, tak­ing advan­tage of the antic­i­pa­tion for Don Juan. 

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The Middling Class may kiss my a…

“I do not in any way affect to be squea­mish – but the char­ac­ter of the Mid­dling Class in the coun­try – is cer­tain­ly high­ly moral – and we should not offend them – as you cur­tail the num­ber of your read­ers – and for the rest of the sub­ject of Don Juan is an excel­lent one – and noth­ing can sur­pass the exquis­ite beau­ties scat­tered so lav­ish­ly through the first two Can­tos.“
The estimable, but exquis­ite­ly squea­mish, John Mur­ray (his pub­lish­er) warn­ing Byron of a like­ly harsh reac­tion from con­ser­v­a­tive taste, before he pub­lished the first two Can­tos, anony­mous­ly, in 1819.