The Virtues of Scandal

Reveling in his unprecedented literary success, George Gordon, the 6th Lord Byron, is less famous than notorious. His all-too-public affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, the sexually energetic young wife of a rising Tory politician, is the talk of London; so too the nagging rumors of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. With the publication of the first cantos of his masterpiece Don Juan, Byron’s sexual indiscretions, radical politics and hilariously acid verse earn him the enmity of some of England’s most powerful figures, including poet laureate Robert Southey and Foreign Secretary Robert Castlereagh. As the waters of scandal rise, and Byron becomes the unwitting pawn in a vast conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of government, England’s most famous and incandescent poet must decide for what – and for whom – he is prepared to make a terrible sacrifice.

Set in Seville, London, Constantinople, Ottoman Greece and St. Petersburg during the first decades of the 19th century, The Virtues of Scandal is a thrilling tale of conspiracy, scandal, betrayal and courage. Interlacing three narratives that span more than a decade and include the rousing adventures of Don Juan himself, the novel is rich with historical detail, bringing to life the gifts, flaws and contradictions that number Byron among the greatest of poets and the most confounding of men.