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Article: Lord Byron's Jackal.(Review)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- April 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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David Crane Lord Byron's Jackal. HarperCollins UK, 398 pages, 19.99 [pounds sterling]
"Byron asked me to preserve the skull for him; but remembering that he had formerly used one as a drinking cup, I was determined that Shelley's should not be so profaned" This agreeably ghoulish detail of Shelley's cremation in July 1822 comes down to us by way of Edward John Trelawny (1792-1881), whose concern for the dignity of the poet's remains did not deter him from plucking out the famously flame-proof heart, and who parlayed his brief friendships with the two bards into one of the oddest, most unlikely careers in English literature.
Trelawny had penetrated the ...