It has been a favorite pastime of academic biographers of both Shelley and Byron to deride Trelawny. This should suprise nobody. To begin with, with few exceptions, one of the primary qualifications of being a full-fledged academic is delight in derision, especially in derision of those who have firsthand knowledge of the subjects they have spent hours in the stacks on University libraries to gain, perhaps, one mote of additional information.-The common criticism of Trelawny is that he was "naive"-By this they mean that his gives a simple, straightforward account of the time he spent with the two great poets without any ponderous theories to bog him down.-Trelawny first admired Byron, but quickly became disillusioned with his cynicism and became a lifelong admirer of Shelley, so much so that he remarked thus, "As a general rule,threfore, it is wise to avoid writers whose works amuse or delight you, for when you see them they will delight you no more. Shelley was a grand exception to this rule. To form a just idea of his poetry, you should have witnessed his daily life; his words and actions best illustrated his writings." After Shelley's death, he continues to follow Byron on his misadventures until his death. The book is a treat in that it is a delight to read, with page-turning accounts of his roistering times with two great men who shaped our literary world.-Not one footnote! He was there!

If you're interested in the life of Edward John Trelawny, you'll have to look elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Tre' (as his friends knew him) was a privateer, a scoundrel, a lover of poetry, a freedom-fighter and a loyal friend of the most prolific literary talents of the romantic period. 'The Last Days of Shelley and Byron' is an account, not of Trelawny's extraordinary life & adventures, but of the two men that helped make that life so extraordinary. In his own words, he tells of the secret lives of Byron, Claire Clairmont and the Shelley's, their romp through sunny Italy and the tragic death of Percy off the coast of Spezzia. The tale continues as Tre' follows Byron to the civil wars of Greece, where Byron too dies. To his credit, though, it is never "Trlawny's tale", but "Byron and Shelley's tale" as told by Trelawny. It is a deep, insightful book that shows the poets as only a close friend could. Yet throughout, one can not help but love Trelawny himself: the man who supported the impoverished Mary Shelley to her dying day... the man who bought a slave for $10,000 only to set him free... the man who reached into the embers of Shelly's pyre, withdrawing his heart. If you love the poetry of Byron and Shelley & have even a passing interest in the men behind the legends, then Trelawny's memoirs are a must-read.

If you're interested in the life of Edward John Trelawny, you'll have to look elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Tre' (as his friends knew him) was a privateer, a scoundrel, a lover of poetry, a freedom-fighter and a loyal friend of the most prolific literary talents of the romantic period. "Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author" is an account, not of Trelawny's extraordinary life & adventures, but of the two men that helped make that life so extraordinary. In his own words, he tells of the secret lives of Byron and the Shelley's, their romp through sunny Italy and the tragic death of Percy in the coast of Spezzia. The tale continues as Tre' follows Byron to the bloody civil war in Greece, where Byron too dies. To his credit, though, it is never "Trelawny's tale", but "Byron and Shelley's tale" as told by Trelawny. This deep, insightful book shows the poets as only a close friend could. Yet throughout, one can not help but love Trelawny himself: the man who supported the impoverished Mary Shelley to her dying day... the man who bought a slave for $10,000 only to set him free... the man who reached into the embers of Shelley's pyre, withdrawing his heart. If you love the poetry of Byron and Shelley & have even a passing interest in the men behind the legends, then Trelawny's memoirs are a must-read.

I'm far from an expert, but an interested novice in this field... Crane's book is interesting for the unique take it presents on the people and events.

On the other hand, his language is flowery, his opinions unsupported by his own evidence, and his patronizing superiority sometimes beathtaking. Byron is held up as a person of judgement and moral probity -- at least in Greece. The Greeks are dismissed as grasping, brutal and mendacious -- and this is attributed to their national character. The Turks are brutal and cold -- again, a "character" trait.

As far as Trelawney himself, I've never read a biography in which the author had such patent and intense dislike of his subject. Without much to go on, Crane gives us a pathological liar and cold-hearted manipulator of people and events. There are many paragraphs which open with the phrase "it's impossible to know given the scanty evidence... but in this case we can be sure that..." or its variant.

At the same time, I'm compelled to read on, if only to see what verbal atrocity the author will commit next. What a ride!

In his book "Adventures of a Younger Son," Edward Trelawny set down the facts of his youth as he had told them for years: how as a teenage midshipman he began his adventures by breaking the skull of his commanding officer and deserting into the pirates' paradise of the Java Sea; of Zella, his fawn-like, thirteen-year-old bride; fearless, bloody years of piracy and rape; and the stirrings of conscience (if not calmness) which led him back to Europe to seek out the Pisan Circle and its "Dioscuri," Shelley and Byron. Shelley's social conscience and intellectual boldness attracted him; Byron, his former idol, repelled him, because the poet could see through his lies and his posturing. Byron was both a dreamer and a cynic, and the spectacle of a Lara or Childe Harold parading unironically in the real world unleashed all of his contempt. (Try to picture Ian Fleming confronted with a fan who's modeled himself on James Bond).

"Lord Byron's Jackal," the title of David Crane's biography, is from a remark by Keats' friend Joseph Severn, who suggested that Trelawny had glutted himself on Byron and his anti-heroes until nothing of the man remained. (Severn might easily have used a different phrase, had he read a certain novel by Trelawny's friend Mary Shelley). Another view, though, is that Trelawny responded to Byron's work because its bold palette mirrored his own abilities and panache; all that had robbed him of the bloody youth of his dreams was bad luck. Now, with the help of the Pisan Circle (most of whom believed his tales), all that would change. Trelawny is not the first man in history to lie his way to the truth, but as Crane tells it, he may be the most fascinating.

I can't think of another non-fiction book that I've enjoyed as much as this one. This has as much to do with Crane's language as with the vivid times and personalities he brings to volcanic life. (In many ways the 1820's was the last gasp of Romanticism, when great poets and writers trumped their own words on the world stage, staking everything on their ideals). A previous reader described Crane's writing as "flowery." No. Crane's sentences are often dense, but never with ornamentation. There's not a word out of place, and I often found myself rereading certain passages just for their beauty and perfection of language--and being rewarded with new meanings and insights. That this amazing book is the author's first is almost unbelievable: Trelawny lives in Crane's words as vividly as in his own.

Equally moving is Crane's portrait of the "Philhellenes": the idealists/adventurers who poured into Greece from Western Europe and America in the 1820's to fight the Turks. Many were on fire from Byron's verse; some were spoiled, self-dramatizing youths, victims of a 19th-century version of Jerusalem Syndrome; a few were cold pragmatists; none of them had the slightest idea what they were in for. Devoured by the savage infighting and double-crosses that typified the war, many of these naïfs died ingloriously and in great confusion and pain. As Crane puts it: "There were young Byronists absorbed in a designer war of their own invention, charlatans attracted by the hope of profit, classicists infatuated with Greece's past, Bethamite reformers, aging Bonapartists--and then all those there for a dozen different motives, who might just once have known why they came but had long forgotten by the time they died."

Trelawny himself was immune to disillusion, because his one cause was the test of his own courage and strength, and he seems to have known from the start what stuff he was made of. What makes Trelawny unique (at least until George Orwell) is that eventually he cut as great a figure with the sword as with the pen--though he seems sometimes to have confused the two. We (and Trelawny too) are fortunate to have another great storyteller, David Crane, to tell us which was which.

A companion to this book would be Trelawny's own "Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron," a great work covering some of the same years as Crane's--by turns hilarious, thrilling, moving, and wise--one of the masterpieces of nineteenth-century fiction.

They may now call it the Romantic period, but it was a brutal period, and Crane makes it clear that a scoundrel like Trelawny -- seducer, adventurer, poetaster -- was in his element. The other people in the area at the time, whether Greek, Turk, or Englishman, weren't so admirable either, and if you're looking for straight-arrow heroes this isn't your book. The "heroes" that populate LBJ are of the Heathcliff variety.

This amazing history brings to mind the current conflict in the Balkans, complete with backstabbing, massacres, self-important generalissimos, singleminded nationalists and bandits. An extraordinary trip into a time almost as scary as our own -- with the added benefit of star players like Byron and Shelley. I loved this book and recommend it highly. (And unlike the previous reviewer, I note Crane's clear sympathy for Trelawny -- despite his disapproval of the man's actions: he details Trelawny's brutal upbringing by his father and the torture inflicted upon him by the British Navy.) It seems to me you don't need to admire someone to find him fascinating.