Kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons

by David Crane (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.25

  At the heart of this book stands Augusta - Byron's half-sister with whom he had a passionate love affair - and Byron's society wife Annabella. Crane has recreated their meeting - 40 years after the death of Byron at which they argue and declare their motives for the actions and events that have shaped their adult lives. The dialogue is taken entirely from their letters and diaries. It covers Byron's relationship with them both, Augusta's daughter by Bryon - Medora's subsequent incestuous affair with her sister's husband, Annabella's daughter Ada, and the inescapability of of sexual mistakes in 19th century Britain.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.25

  A groundbreaking work of Romantic biography; David Crane's book is an astonishingly original examination of Byron, and a radical approach to biography. Crane focuses on the lifelong feud between Augusta - Byron's half-sister with whom he had a passionate affair - and Annabella, his society wife. Recreating a meeting between the two, years after Byron's death - the Romantic 'High Noon' - he explores the emotional and sexual truth and the human vulnerability that lie at the heart of the Byron story. 'The Kindness of Sisters' is not only rigorous in its scholarship, but also superbly compelling drama. Crane's book combines passion, revenge and recrimination in 19th-century Britain with all the intensity of a Greek tragedy.