A comprehensive selection from the entire poetical output of perhaps the best-known English-language author since Shakespeare, as well as from his diaries, letters, articles, and plays. The volume is divided into 10 thematical chapters and 8 "interludes." Each chapter is subdivided into various headings. Some texts contain Byron's original footnotes, but the editor has added 176 explanatory notes, which will be very helpful to today's readers. A 14-page year-by-year and month-by-month chronology of Byron's life is placed before the first chapter.