His own life ended in a desperate attempt to shape history. All his life Byron read and studied history. Public readings of the poem caused genteel ladies to swoon illustrations from the work showed a young Harold (who looked exactly like his creator) brooding intensely its themes of disillusionment, longing, and exile resonated with a British public tired of endless battles against Napoleon. Its success, along with his subsequent ‘Oriental’ poems, granted Byron a degree of celebrity unrivaled in his time. Murray allowed prepublication copies to be shared amongst various London tastemakers and, on the strength of their approval, the work – now titled Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage – was released. Dallas who urged him to publish the poem with John Murray, arguably the most important bookseller in England. They left England in 1809 and did not return for two years. Inspiration came from his travels throughout southern Europe with his friend John Cam Hobhouse. The work was originally titled Childe Burun’s Pilgrimage when Byron completed the first two cantos in 1811 Burun was an archaic spelling of Byron.
Childe was the medieval title for a young squire about to take his vows of knighthood. The poem contains many autobiographical elements, and is perhaps the most perfect encapsulation of the ‘Romantic’ ethos. Fortunately, Byron was preternaturally self-aware and he greeted his newfound celebrity with amusement. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was the poem whose publication caused Byron to remark, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.” Published in 1812, it did indeed bring him fame and literary renown.
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