Lord Byron

British nobility, the sixth Lord Byron and one of the great romantic poets of the English language. Byron was born with a clubfoot, a deformed right foot and calf, and was raised by an erratic mom after his dad's death when he was three. He was a poor student, but an avid reader. Extremely handsome, he had almost as much fame for his outrageous sex life as for his great works of poetry. Literary historians write that nurse May Gray awoke "precocious passions" in Byron when he was only nine years old. Scarcely out of adolescence, he embarked on numerous liaisons with partners ranging from married women to a choir boy. "Byron's Letters and Journals" (1973-94) freely confides his most intimate feelings and experiences. The details of his sex life - a remarkably varied one, including homosexuality at school and after, much whoring and tupping of servant girls, an orgiastic interlude in Venice, incest with his half-sister, and numerous seductions and liaisons within his own social class - have all emerged in graphic detail. At his second and final departure from England, in 1816, he was a monster of vanity and appetite, with one possibly redeeming quality; he could write. In Europe he became the Byron cherished by posterity.

His first poems were published in 1806. His epic poem, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," begun in 1812, made him a celebrity, but his affairs outraged London society and he was forced into exile in 1815 after a scandal over a liaison with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh.

When he came of age, Byron took his seat in the House of Lords, then toured Europe for two years after 1809. Deeply in debt, he made an advantageous marriage in 1815. His wife bore their daughter, Ada, before she left him a year later. After the breakup, Byron then moved to Italy, where he lived the rest of his life.

He did become involved with helping Greece in its struggle for independence from Ottoman Turkey. While on this expedition, he appeared to have epileptic fits.