Handsome, eccentric, and prone to grandiose gestures, Lord Byron was born in London in 1788. He had a clubfoot that made him sensitive about his appearance all his life. Adventurous, he frequently traveled, and he was unconventional; he had a pet bear while a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. After publishing the first cantos of his autobiographical poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–18), Byron became a literary celebrity and a notorious figure, dubbed by one lover as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” He had numerous affairs with men and women, and his lovers allegedly included his half sister. His other works include the poems “She Walks in Beauty” (1814), “Darkness” (1816), and Don Juan (1819–24).
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