The first ever biography of Dr Charles Lewis Meryon (17831877), born in Rye (Sussex), physician to Lady Hester Stanhope and companion on her travels on various different occasions (to Malta, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Lebanon) during which he met Lord Byron, the Pasha of Egypt, and famed traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, among many other characters and personalities; he was shipwrecked, attacked by pirates and lost for several days in the desert, in addition to living numerous other adventures; he was the father of tormented French artist Charles Meryon (the artist's mother's unrequited love for his father is told by means of their original correspondence), author of the two three-volume sets, The Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope and The Travels of the Lady Hester Stanhope, translator (Meryon mastered various languages both ancient and modern); poet, and revolutionary politician in his home town of Rye. The biography also includes an edition of his poem 'Tis all my Eye' and 'Betty Martin,' of which only five copies were ever printed. The last remaining copy in the UK was destroyed in the bombing of London in the Second World War, and the work was believed to be lost forever, but the last surviving copy was recently unearthed in Canada. The biography is a companion volume to the newly discovered Additional Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope: An Unpublished Historical Account for the Years 1819-1820, as recorded by her physician Charles Lewis Meryon, edited with an introduction by Mark Guscin.
