The Last Attachment: The Story of Byron and Teresa Guiccioli Book

By Iris Origo. Introduction by Jonathan Galassi. Contessa Teresa Guiccioli was 19 years oldand married to a jealous and violent husbandwhen she became Byrons mistress in 1819. Incorporating 116 letters from Byron to Teresa, and some of her answers to him, Iris Origos narrative of Byrons Italian years not only follows the lovers five year affair but provides real insight into the labyrinth of Italian social and political life of the time, including Byrons part in the Italian revolutionary movement, which led to his lifes last adventure in Greece. Teresa was his last love, but before the end came the relations of these passionate, unstable peopleone an English aristocrat and celebrity and the other at the height of Italian society, involving intermediaries, surveillance, look-outs, spies, bribes, and inspired, as could be expected, great scandal. They became political exiles, and for political reasons, in which the affair with Byron served as an excuse, Teresas marriage was dissolved by the Pope. With a new introduct! ! ion by Jonathan Galassi, the intense focus of this biography, originally published in 1949, results in drama as taut and personal as a novels and will appeal to general readers and students of Byron alike.Read More