George Gordon, Lord Byron

Lord Byron lived from January 22, 1788 (London, England, UK) to April 19, 1824 (Missolonghi, Greece). He was an English Romantic poet and satirist.

One of his most important works was Don Juan, a book-length narrative poem. (In Byron's poem, "Juan" is pronounced in its Anglicized form; the opening stanza rhymes "Juan" with "new one" and "true one.").

One of his most familiar poems, She Walks in Beauty, opens:

  She walks in beauty, like the night
      Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
  And all that's best of dark and bright
      Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

In his personal life Byron was notorious for his numerous romantic affairs; his lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, described him as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

Byron went into self-imposed exile in Italy (he assisted the Italian freedom fighters working for democracy)... Depressed by both his daughter's death and the drowning of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron took up a new cause - that of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. Summoning support, he arrived in Greece with weapons and supplies, but before he could join the fight, went down with a deadly fever (malaria).

He was buried in the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene in the town of Hucknall, near Nottingham, in the United Kingdom.