Byron's Memoirs, written between 1818 and 1821 but never published and destroyed soon after his death, recounted at full-length his life, loves, and opinions. He gave the manuscript to the poet Thomas Moore, who in turn sold it to John Murray with the intention that it should eventually be published. On Lord Byron's death in 1824, Moore, Murray, John Cam Hobhouse, and other friends who were concerned for his reputation gathered together and burned the original manuscript and the only known copy of it, in what has been called the greatest literary crime in history.
Since the Memoirs are lost beyond recovery, only the vaguest idea of their nature can be gathered from the mutually inconsistent testimony of those contemporaries of Byron who read them in manuscript. It is hard to judge how sexually explicit they were, some witnesses maintaining that they were perfectly fit for anyone to read and others that they were far too scabrous ever to be published.
Composition
As early as 1809, while travelling in Albania with his friend John Cam Hobhouse, Byron wrote an account of his life and thoughts. Hobhouse persuaded him to destroy this document, though Byron protested that the world was being robbed of a treat.
Byron again began to consider an autobiography in 1818. On 10 July he wrote from Venice in a letter to his publisher John Murray in London,
I think of writing (for your full edition) some memoirs of my life to prefix to them – upon the same model (though far enough I fear from reaching it) as that of Gifford – Hume – &c and this without any intention of making disclosures or remarks upon living people which would be unpleasant to them...I have materials in plenty - but the greater part of these could not be used by me – nor for three hundred years to come – however there is enough without these...to make you a good preface for such an edition as you meditate – but this by the way – I have not made up my mind.
On 3 August he told Murray that he had made good progress with the Memoirs, and on 26 August that they were nearly finished, but that they were now too long and too indiscreet to be publishable as a preface: "I shall keep it among my papers – it will be a kind of Guide post in case of death – and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise be told".
On 29 October 1819 he announced that he had given the Memoirs, which took his story as far as 1816, to his friend Thomas Moore, the poet, and repeated that they were "[not] for publication during my life – but when I am cold – you may do what you please." Moore accepted this restriction and good-humouredly looked forward to bequeathing the book to his son, "who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it". Between 1820 and 1821 Byron added a second portion, bringing the Memoirs to a length of at least 120,000 words. The complete Memoirs, all in Moore's possession, were handed out by him to a large number of readers in the fashionable world, so many indeed that the manuscripts were in danger of falling apart from overuse, so that Moore was obliged to have a copy made. In July 1821, with Byron's blessing, Moore sold the manuscript and the copy to Murray for the enormous sum of £2100, but then Byron had second thoughts and the deal was renegotiated to give Moore and himself the power to buy back the Memoirs during Byron's lifetime. They still remained in manuscript when Byron died on 19 April 1824 at Missolonghi in Greece.
Destruction
Within minutes of hearing that Byron was dead Hobhouse began to plan the destruction of the manuscripts, motivated perhaps by a feeling that all memoirs were by definition slightly improper; by fear of being associated with such a libertine as Byron, now that he himself was a respectable MP; or by resentment that they had been entrusted to Moore, Hobhouse's rival in Byron's friendship. On approaching John Murray, who he supposed might want to profit by publishing them, he found to his surprise that Murray was just as keen as himself to see them burned. Moore initially favoured buying back the manuscript from Murray and handing it over to Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister, for destruction, but then he changed his mind and decided instead that with the excision of all improper passages Byron's reputation would be sufficiently secured. Besides, he argued, Byron had told him that he could "show them to the elect", and since he had actually done so there could be no further harm in publishing them. A meeting was held at Hobhouse's chambers in Albany to thrash the matter out. Present were Moore, Hobhouse, Henry Luttrell (a friend of Moore's, inclined to support him whatever he decided), and John Murray. All of them were under the mistaken impression, not having actually consulted the legal documents in the case, that Moore might still have some rights in the matter, whereas in fact Byron's death had rendered the Memoirs the absolute property of John Murray, to deal with as he saw fit. Murray pointed out that William Gifford, who had read the Memoirs, was of the opinion that they would make Byron's name infamous forever. They argued so fiercely that Moore even spoke of settling the matter by fighting a duel with Murray. The meeting was then adjourned to Murray's house in Albemarle Street, where Wilmot Horton, acting for Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh, and Colonel Francis Doyle, acting for Lady Byron, were waiting. Moore protested that to destroy the manuscript would be "contrary to Lord Byron's wishes and unjust to myself", but Hobhouse's and Murray's view of the matter finally prevailed and, with Moore's reluctant consent, the manuscript was torn up and burned in Murray's fireplace by Horton and Doyle. This has been called the greatest literary crime in history. Some 19th-century commentators believed that one or more copies of the Memoirs still survived and would one day emerge, and indeed that hope is still nurtured by a few, but the scholarly consensus is that the book is irrecoverably lost.
Blame
Though most of those present at the Albemarle Street meeting were in favour of the destruction of the Memoirs, Moore was vehemently opposed to it until overborne by the others; yet for many years Hobhouse kept up a campaign of public sniping against Moore, throwing the blame onto him. Moore's account of the fateful meeting at Murray's house, recorded in his diary, gave a sympathetic view of his part in the story, but when that diary was published by Lord John Russell in 1853 he excised this entry, and it long remained unpublished. With only one side of the question being heard, the general feeling throughout the 19th century was that Moore was the man most responsible for the burning of the Memoirs. One note of dissent came from Moore's friend Walter Scott, who recorded in his diary his opinion that Moore had been ill-treated, but as late as 1937 Moore's biographer, L. A. G. Strong wrote, "The conclusion cannot be resisted that Moore failed his friend".
Modern scholarship assigns the blame elsewhere. Leslie A. Marchand wrote that Hobhouse was chiefly responsible, and Terence de Vere White came to the same conclusion, adding that Murray was the second most guilty man. G. Wilson Knight brought in a verdict against Hobhouse, Colonel Doyle, Wilmot Horton and Murray as being jointly responsible, with the rider that "behind it all...was Lady Byron". Paul Douglass believes that some blame must also go to Byron himself, in that he was too careless of his Memoirs' fate, and certainly Byron did allow them to fall into the hands of John Murray, whom he considered "the most timorous of God's booksellers".
Contents
In the absence of any surviving manuscript of the Memoirs, the only direct evidence for the nature of their contents comes from comments by Byron himself, and by such friends of Moore, Murray, and Byron as were allowed to read it. These readers included Elizabeth Palgrave, Lady Burghersh, Lady Davy, Lord and Lady Holland, Richard Hoppner, Washington Irving, Lady Jersey, Lord Kinnaird and his brother Douglas, Henry Luttrell, Lady Mildmay, Lord Rancliffe, Lord John Russell, William Gifford, William Maginn, Lady Caroline Lamb, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley (probably), John William Polidori (probably), Samuel Rogers (possibly), and two copyists employed by Moore called Williams and Dumoulin. Byron offered his estranged wife the chance to read the Memoirs, but she refused to have anything to do with it.
Byron wrote to Murray about the first part of the Memoirs, which ended at the year 1816, that
The Life is Memoranda and not Confessions. I have left out all my loves (except in a general way), and many other of the most important things (because I must not compromise other people)...But you will find many opinions, and some fun, with a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such accounts, for I suppose we are all prejudiced.
His friend Thomas Medwin later reported that Byron had told him about the second part that it
will prove a good lesson to young men; for it treats of the irregular life I led at one period, and the fatal consequences of dissipation. There are few parts that may not, and none that will not, be read by women...When you read my Memoirs you will learn the evils, moral and physical, of true dissipation. I can assure you my life is very entertaining and very instructive.
Thomas Moore also drew a distinction between the two parts. The first part contained "little unfit for publication", and "on the mysterious cause of the separation [from his wife at the beginning of 1816] it afforded no light whatever"; but as for the second part, "some of its details could never have been published at all". Privately, Moore told Hobhouse that "the first part of the Memoirs contained nothing objectionable except one anecdote – namely that Lord B. had Lady B. on the sofa before dinner on the day of their marriage." On the other hand, "The second part contained all sorts of erotic adventures". When he came to write his Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life (1830), Moore silently incorporated all the incidents he could remember relating to Byron's early London life from the Memoirs, or at any rate all he considered fit to print.