Abstract

A letter from Byron to John Murray has for two centuries remained unpublished. It has been in the collection of letters and autographs amassed by Theresa, Lady Lewis (1803– 1865), and handed down through later generations of the Lister family. The letter was written in February 1814, when a controversy had erupted about the inclusion in the Corsair volume of Byron’s short poem ‘To a Lady Weeping’, which was objected to by many as an insult to the Prince of Wales. During the controversy, John Murray had removed it from new editions of the best-selling Corsair volume. Later he restored it, but in this letter, after some polite preliminaries, Byron forcefully tells Murray that he will not be forced into anything that looks like ‘apology or submission’, and that if Murray were to compromise him in this, they should ‘cease to be friends’. 1

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