Both Byron and Shelley died young. By the time Byron left Harrow, almost half his life was over; and when Shelley left Eton, three-fifths of his life was gone. Ian Gilmour has concentrated on the two poets in their youth, and tells their stories in tandem. Their formative years had a decisive influence on the later lives of them both. An an historian, Gilmour provides an interesting account of the political, social and economic background to their writings. Byron and Shelley lived in the stormy age of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the post-Napoleon reaction. They became close friends, and though they are usually thought to have been very different from each other, Gilmour shows that they had much more in common than is usually recognized.