Wonderful account of Byron, Keats and Shelley and the women who formed part of their romantic and tragic circle. I had a general idea of some of the story but learnt so much; all the characters are so vivid, their personalities brought out in conversation; in occasional monologues.
Opening with the unhappy account of Mary Wollstonecraft's early, unconventional life, the narrative moves on to the daughter she leaves behind- Mary Godwin-; and the stepsister acquired by her father's second marriage- Jane (later Claire) Clairmont. Into their humble but literary life comes the poet Shelley. And later Byron...who has moved from disturbed Caroline Lamb to his married half sister to a short-lived marriage with a principled lady... And the most normal of the group- Keats - dying of consumption- and his beloved Fanny Brawne.,

I love Jude Morgan's books which bring history to life. ( )

Historical fiction told from the points of view of women who loved three of the most famous Romatnic poets: Byron, Shelley, and Keats. It hews very closely to the known facts, revealing opinions and personalities so unobtrusively and naturally that the prodigious amount of research Morgan must have done is invisible. Beautifully told, with natural dialog and evocative imagery and metaphors. Impressively, I came away from this novel feeling strongly for each of the historical personages, even Byron who I usually dislike. I really wish this had been several equally long books, instead of just one: I would have loved an entire novel of Fanny Brawne and Keats teasing and sighing over each other, for instance. ( )

Passion- all of its many meanings are represented in this wonderful historical novel about Byron, Shelley, and Keats, as told through the eyes of the women they loved and who loved them in return. They lived extraordinary, scandalous lives filled with love, hate, and lust, touched by genius and tragedy. Perhaps the most outrageous was Byron, whose most famous affairs were with Lady Caroline Lamb, Claire (Jane) Clairmont Godwin, and his half sister Augusta Leigh. He was forced to leave England and move to Italy. Shelley had ideals that were outside the norm and his affair and then marriage to Mary Godwin Shelley also forced them to move from England. They all travelled in a circle of like minded rebels, and their passions destroyed them. The time that Fanny Brawne and John Keats spent together seemed to be more normal, but all too brief. The men all had very early tragic deaths and their genius was not wholly recognized until much later. Jude Morgan captures all of this in a well researched novel that sticks close to the facts as I know them, embellished by the dialog that makes this fiction. The book is told through the different voices of these women, and in different ways. The briefest part is told through Fanny Brawne, although I think I liked her best. The brevity is probably due partly to the fact that Keats had burned all of her letters and they were not at hand for research, and also to the fact that their time together was very brief.

I really enjoyed this book. If you love historical novels, I think you would love this.

Read February 2015 ( )

Again, sadly, I wasn't able to finish this book. Yet, I'm not going to abandon it. I liked it in the beginning, but how's happening too often recently, I didn't feel the necessary interest to go on. I'm a huge fan of Byron, Shelley and Keats, so I thought I was going to love this book, getting inside their lives, knowing more about them, what was there in their lives that made them what they were, three of the greatest poets of the Romantic era. See all this through the eyes of the women who loved them could only increase my liking. But there was something, i couldn't grasp exactly what, that didn't satisfied me, and from being unsatisfied to put down the book is a short step ( )

Historical fiction of Byron, Keats and Shelley ( )