Byron charts the rise and fall of an irresistible and devastatingly handsome genius who had it all and threw it all away. It begins as Byron's struggle for acceptance as a poet is reversed by the publication of Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage, which turns him into an overnight success and the toast of London society--the 19th century equivalent of a bad-boy rock star. While disdaining social conventions, he needs money, so marries wealthy pious Annabella...

"Born in 1757, the son of a London hosier, William Blake - poet, painter, and engraver - possessed one of the most original and fertile creative geniuses of his age. Yet his strange aloofness and claims of supernatural visions caused many in his own time and since to doubt his sanity, and much of his astonishing poetry and visual art remains unfamiliar. Now, Peter Ackroyd gives us a biography of the enigmatic eighteenth-century master, clarifying...

"As the ultimate example of the Romantic artist, William Blake made radical developments in art technique to communicate his vision. However visual art was just one facet of his achievement. In his famous illuminated books, Blake combined painting, engraving and poetry, some of which are now the most famous in the English language. However, Blake's visual art can be far more readily appreciated, and pictures such as The ancient of days remain a powerful...