In the same way that Byron has been labeled 'Britain's first international celebrity', so have his readers often been imagined as screaming fans under the grip of 'Byromania'.
Although this image is somewhat anachronistic - there may be reports of a woman fainting upon seeing Byron, but his readers at no point congregated in hysterical mobs - Byron was certainly, as far as I have been able to find, the first author ever to receive fan mail on a large scale. Hundreds of fans, whom Byron had never met, wrote to tell him how much they enjoyed (or, sometimes, despised) reading his poetry. These letters, nearly 50 of which are kept in the Murray Archive in the National Library of Scotland, offer uniquely personal and individual insights into the way Byron was read in his time. The letters are intimate, self-revealing and often outrageously flirtatious, much like Byron's own poetry.
Excerpt from a letter from a woman who signs her name 'Anna':
'My Lord, Tho I have not the honor of being personally known to you, I yet venture to address you; tho, I cannot offer any other excuse for the Liberty I take, if the irresistible desire I feel of thus (unknown) paying my humble tribute at the Shrine of Genius, be not deemd any apology... I have hung in rapt attention over every Line of Child Harold, I am not a Critic but an inexperienced young Woman, but the language of genius & of nature must be felt & never makes its appeal in Vain to my heart...'
While each letter is unique, there are several common themes that run throughout them as a group. Most of the letters read almost like a love letter, even though they are addressed to a stranger. Byron's readers imagined that they knew the poet intimately through his verse. Many of the letters talk about an unambiguously erotic experience of reading Byron's poetry. One woman writes: 'Why, did my breast with rapture glow? Thy talents to admire, why, as I read, my bosom felt? Enthusiastic fire'. These readers' descriptions of their physical reaction to Byron's work - the letters are filled with fluttering hearts, fiery bosoms and wild tumults - show the success of Byron's image as a seductive bad-boy.
Yet the erotic element of the letters is only one aspect of the women's appreciation of Byron. Byron's female readers have often been dismissed as undiscerning fans, who are more interesting in Byron's persona than in his writing, but these letters suggest a real intellectual engagement with Byron's poetry. One writer describes herself as 'deeply indebted for a constant source of intellectual pleasure' and offers some close analysis of Byron's work.
The most-often quoted section of Byron's poetry is from his best-selling poem, The Corsair: 'His heart was formed for softness - warp'd to wrong; / Betray'd too early, and beguiled too long'. The reason why the Byronic hero seems to appeal so heavily to Byron's readers is that his potential wickedness, combined with his soft heart, creates an opportunity for reform - a change which can be enabled by the reader herself. The idea that the Byronic hero is wounded, dangerous and sinful allows the reader to put herself in the position of the healer, lover and reformer.
Other women used these letters as a way of describing their own personal situations and fantasies under the safe veil of anonymity. Women closely identified with the Byronic hero's sense of isolation. One woman writes: 'Like you... I am indeed the child of sorrow and misfortune, estranged from my former friends, and abandoned by my family'. Often the women will offer Byron a surprising amount of detail about their own lives. Some describe the process of writing to Byron as a kind of personal therapy, with one declaring she was 'never easy till ... I had pour'd forth my heart before you'.
After bearing their emotions to a stranger, many women ask Byron to destroy or burn their letter after reading it. Very rarely do the women ask to meet Byron; they seem to prefer keeping their 'relationship' to him as a fantasy. Byron responded to some of his more persistent letter writers (Byron's lovers Claire Clairmont and Lady Caroline Lamb both wrote to him initially as 'fans') but, because of their anonymity, most of the letters went unanswered.
In the same way that musicians and actors might struggle to be taken seriously today if they appeal primarily to young women, Byron's celebrity status threatened to overshadow the reputation of his poetry. Byron tried to distance himself from his female readership, declaring to his publisher that he would not write 'Ladies' Books'. Yet the fact that he kept his fan letters, and often boasted about them to his friends, suggests that he cared more about the opinion of his fans than his pose of aristocratic nonchalance would have us believe.
Corin Throsby is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford. She is currently writing a book on Byron, fandom and flirtation.
