Lord Byron’s Jackal: A Life of Trelawny: A Life of Trelawnay - Softcover

‘In Lord Byron’s Jackal, David Crane brings Edward Trelawny – seaman, scoundrel, friend of Byron and Shelley and the original of Stevenson’s Squire Trelawney – startlingly to life. Here is a wonderful adventure story about a man who invented himself in the image of the Byronic hero and lived to the hilt the final passionate and violent flowering of Romanticism in the cause of Greek independence.’
Stella Tillyard

‘Gloriously enjoyable ...a real thriller...piecing together with admirable gusto its own unforgettable tale of adventure.’ PHILIP HORNE, Evening Standard

‘A great achievement’ ROBERT MCCRUM, Observer

‘English Romanticism threw up some unlikely spear-carriers, but there were few more outlandish specimens than Edward John Trelawny (1792-1881). Hastily summarised, his career – which took in friendships with Shelley and Byron, numberless love affairs and a stint as a brigand chieftain –- might serve as a plot for the most lurid kind of Victorian adventure novel; all kept going, as David Crane’s excellent biography shows, by an egotism and a tendency to self-dramatise capable of putting even Byron’s legendary monomania in the shade...to which the episodes of his life [provide] a continuous fiery backdrop. Sent off to school by a disapproving father, he escaped at 13 to the navy, saw service in Java, and took a bullet in the leg. Discharged around the time of Waterloo, he married an 18-year-old heiress, who betrayed him with an older man, and ended up in the divorce courts...Crane points out the unlucky chance that led Byron (who died of apoplexy) to ask his advice about doctors and Shelley (who died in a storm at sea) to consult him about boat building...With Byron dead, he embarked on a kind of Romantic fantasy life in a fortified cave situated in the Parnassan mountains. ‘No more a nameless being, I am now a Greek chieftain,’ he wrote home. With a 13-year-old bride and a host of cut-throat accomplices, he nearly died in an assassination attempt, and was rescued by a retired English officer named Francis D’Arcy Bacon... This is a fascinating trip around the wilder shores of pre-Victorian Romantic life. D J TAYLOR, Mail on Sunday

‘An outstanding biography’ JONATHAN KEATES, Spectator

‘Fascinating and oddly disturbing ...Crane tells the story with admirable generosity. His is a complex book, but as a narrative of mingled fraud and genius it is altogether convincing.’ JAN MORRIS, Independent

‘Splendidly readable’ JONATHAN BATE, Sunday Telegraph

‘Brilliant, written with an impressive combination of scholarship and verve. ...This is apparently a first book, but no one would suppose so from its trenchant, glistening style.’ ALETHEA HAYTER, TLS