‘She saw that the execution was as good as the Intention’: AINB, ‘Recollections of Seaham’, 1847, Dep. Lovelace Byron 14.
‘very gentle and good’: The Athenaeum, November 1869, p. 669.
‘You never forgot one word of your speech nor was any fear discernable in your speech’: AIM, 7 November 1803. Playfully inscribed on the back of the paper: ‘Compliments – No.1. – praises – to be sold only to those on whom the compliments are made. Price a good deal, viz. 2s.’. Dep. Lovelace Byron 117, fol. 1.
‘A peace would set all afloat again’: JM to MN, 31 May 1794 and 24 May 1795, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 17–18, 51–3.
‘nearly resembling the heavenly, in the divine illumination of that countenance of hers’: Sarah Siddons to JM, both quotations from the same letter of 11 July 1810, Dep. Lovelace Byron 14, fols. 102–4.
whose ‘natural simplicity and modest retirement’ was accompanied by ‘a . . . charming manner’: Joanne Common, Seaham Hall Historical Project, 1998, p. 10, extracted from University of Durham SEQ 40.
Chapter Three: The Siege of Annabella (1810–12)
‘she is to be shunned by all who do not honour iniquity’: Ethel Mayne, The Life and Letters of Anne Isabella, Lady Noel Byron (Charles Scribner, 1929), p. 29.
for ‘a character so far beyond what any of your years possess’: Lady Auckland to AIM, 26 July 1811, Dep. Lovelace Byron 62, fols. 8–12.
Annabella’s readily bestowed friendship did nothing to speed her progress to the altar: George Eden (later Lord Auckland) to AIM, 26 July 1811, DLM transcript.
‘an unfounded pursuit of other objects?’: Vere Foster (ed.), The Two Duchesses (Blackie & Son, 1898), pp. 348–9.
‘I would give the world to go back for six months . . .’: Augustus Foster to Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, 26 May, 1812, ibid., p. 365.
‘I shall live in hope for you,’ the duchess wrote: Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire to Sir Augustus Foster, 28 May and 4 July 1812, ibid., pp. 368, 372.
‘she was much embarrassed’, Mrs Lamb wrote; worse, she ‘has never mentioned you since’: Mrs George Lamb (‘Caro George’) to Sir Augustus Foster, 31 August 1812, ibid., pp. 373–4.
‘I do not believe that Mac[kenzie] has any thoughts of me though I am sure Lady Seaforth has’: AIM to RM, 14 and 13 April 1812, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fols. 90–1.
‘I am much the fashion this year. Mankind bow before me, and womankind think me somebody’: AIM to RM, 9 April 1812, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fols. 33–4.
‘Farewell old Woman – make yourself merry with thinking how merry I am’: AIM to JM, 11 July 1811, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fols. 23–4.
‘If she sometimes is mistaken as to the best method of securing your comfort’: Dr Fenwick to AIM, 2 February 1812, Dep. Lovelace Byron 69, fols. 43–5.
‘I therefore propose not to be in London till this day fortnight . . .’: AIM to JM, n.d. but probably 9 or 10 February 1812, two weeks before her departure for London, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 47–9.
‘for a time [it] gave her the appearance of blooming health’: AIM to JM, 24 February 1812, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 51–3.
Chapter Four: Entering the Lists (1812–13)
‘Childe Harold . . . is on every table, and himself courted, visited, flattered and praised’: Vere Foster (ed.), The Two Duchesses (Blackie & Son, 1898), pp. 375–6
Miss Milbanke’s reserved manner and air of ‘quiet contempt’: Byron to AIM, 26 September 1814, BL&J, vol. 4.
‘I was astonished – overpowered – I could not believe it’: Byron to AIM, enclosing a cutting about Annabella from Caroline’s letter to himself, 9 October 1814, BL&J, vol. 4.
Lord Byron was ‘without exception’: AIM to JM, 16 April 1812, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fols. 33–4.
‘But these are all, has she no others?’: Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb, 1 May 1812, BL&J, vol. 2.
‘the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing dangerous fascinating little being that lives’: Byron to Lady CL, [April] 1812, ibid.
‘As to Love, that is done in a week’: Byron to Lady Melbourne, 18 September 1812, ibid.
‘the result of all this seems to me’: Lady Melbourne to Byron, 29 September 1812, in Jonathan David Gross (ed.), Byron’s ‘Corbeau Blanc’: The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne (Rice University Press, 1997), pp. 118–121.
‘I am never sulky’: AIM to Lady Melbourne, 21–25 October 1812, ibid., pp. 124–6.
‘till you can attain this power over Yourself never boast of your command over yr passions’: Lady Melbourne to AIM, 25 October 1812, ibid., pp. 126–7.
‘After so full an explanation you will perhaps take off my stilts, and allow that I am only on tiptoe’: AIM to Lady Melbourne, October 1812, n.d. but after the 25th. ibid., pp. 133–4.
‘if she does not misunderstand me nor my views’: Byron to Lady Melbourne, 12 February 1813, BL&J, vol. 4.
‘Perhaps, unconscious as I was, the engagement was then formed on my part . . . but every time I felt more pain, & at last I shunned the occasions’: AIM, Journal, 6 May to 26 June 1813, quoted in Ethel Mayne, The Life and Letters of Anne Isabella, Lady Noel Byron (Charles Scribner, 1929), p. 55.
Caroline Lamb was merely signalling a frenzied wish to recapture her lost lover’s interest: Lady Melbourne to Byron, 7 July 1813, in Gross, op. cit., pp. 142–3.
‘I have not the skill – ’: Byron to Lady Melbourne, 18 July 1813, BL&J, vol. 4.
‘In particular I would not have it known to Ly Melbourne . . .’: AIM to Byron, 22 August 1813, NLS.
Chapter Five: An Epistolary Courtship (1813–14)
humbly sought permission to address her as ‘My dear friend’: Byron to AIM, extracted from letters written on 6 and 26 September, and 10 November 1813, BL&J, vol. 3.
Annabella was to be his mentor, not his confidante: Byron to AIM, 26 September 1813, ibid.
the kind of young woman who ‘enters into a clandestine correspondence’: Byron to Lady Melbourne, 28 September 1813, ibid.
‘What I want is a companion – a friend rather than a sentimentalist’: Byron to Lady Melbourne, 19–21 February 1814, ibid.
‘He has never yet suspected me,’ she sighed: AIM to Lady Gosford, 1 and 3 December 1813, Dep.
