1825 — pp. (i-lxxix), (1), (1)-222. Deckled edges. Foxed. Early manuscript ownership of Miss C. Bowman on first fly leaf. Fly leaves loose. 8vo. 230 mm. Original paper boards binding; boards detached; spine with some loss. Hardbound. Good. Title continues: 'To Which Is Prefixed an Account of the Circumstances Leading to the Suppression of Lord Byron's Correspondence With the Author, and His Letters to His Mother, Lately Announced for Publication'. Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824) was a Jamaican-born British poet and conservative writer, who is best known for this contentious book on Lord Byron. When Byron died in April 1814, Dallas (who was introduced himself to Byron by letter on the publication of Hours of Idleness [1807] proposed to publish the Recollections. Some letters addressed by Byron to his mother during his eastern travels were given to Dallas by Byron. Dallas, on the strength of these and other communications, prepared an account of Byron's life from 1808 to 1814. He notified Byron in 1819 that the Recollections were finished, and would be published only after his own death. On the grapevine (via Byron's aunt Julia Heath) Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister who was dealing with a number of would-be biographers, heard of the plan and objected strongly. Dallas won over George Anson Byron, his brother-in-law. John Cam Hobhouse and John Hanson, Byron's executors, obtained an injunction from Lord Eldon against the publication of the letters. Extracts from the Recollections appeared in The Courier, in November 1824, but about a month behind Thomas Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron. By the time of the Courier publication, Dallas had returned to France and died. There was a French version, and his son Alexander Dallas had the book published in 1825, in Paris. This is the First American Edition. S&S/AI 20248. PAIMP 20
