Editorial

Readers of The Byron Journal are often asked to cast their gaze before and after, to consider Byron’s influences and those whom he influenced. This is certainly the case with the present issue which features a variety of essays that do both of these things. Karen Caines returns to the issue of Byron’s Latin influences, a subject she explored in relation to Horace in issue 45.2, to analyse Byron’s only known surviving poems in Latin (if any readers know of others then she kindly asks that you drop her a line). Marie Kawthar Daouda examines why Marie Corelli may have played a role in shaping attitudes to Byron during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, while, turning to more recent times, Emily A. Bernhard-Jackson explores the subject of Byron’s influence on the self-fashioning of one of the icons of twentieth-century rock music, David Bowie.

As we know, Byron was also a man who influenced and was influenced by his own cultural moment. In this issue, Stephen Minta takes up the question, ‘Why did Byron envy Thomas Hope’s Anastasius?’ and provides us with some answers.

A figure who bridges the past and present and looks to preserve them for the future is the collector, and, in the final essay of this issue, Geoffrey Bond presents us with an illuminating account of his years spent collecting rare Byron first editions and other artefacts.

The issue features conference reports, including one of the International conference in Ravenna this summer, society reports, and an enlarged edition of Report from the Salerooms which now includes details of American auctions alongside those from the UK. The latter contains some particularly intriguing and unusual items and I hope you enjoy finding out about them and all of the other subjects presented here.