The Literary Relationship of Lord Byron and Thomas Moore

Contradicting the popular perception that Percy Bysshe Shelley was the poet who exerted the most influence upon Lord Byron's work, Jeffery W. Vail demonstrates that close friend and biographer Thomas Moore was a larger presence in Byron's life and work than any other living writer. In this analysis, Vail reconstructs the social, political and literary contexts of both writers' works through extensive consultation of 19th-century sources - including hundreds of contemporary reviews and articles on the two writers and over 500 unpublished manuscript letters written by Moore.