BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD) Autograph manuscript of his poem 'Farewell to Malta', 26 May 1811

BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD) Autograph manuscript of his poem 'Farewell to Malta', signed with initial ('B') and dated ('May 26th/ 1811') at foot, beginning '...Adieu ye Joys of La Valette!/ Adieu Sirocco, Sun & Sweat!...', comprising fifty-six lines, with two textual revisions on pages 2 and 3, four pages on a bifolium, dust-staining, discolouration and marks, creased at folds, horizontal and vertical tears professionally repaired, fragment of red wax seal, 4to (242 x 185mm.), [Malta], 26 May 1811; in a blue cloth portfolio folding case by Riviere, gilt lettered on spine Footnotes: 'AND NOW I'VE GOT TO MRS FRASER – PERHAPS YOU THINK I MEAN TO PRAISE HER': THE ONLY KNOWN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF BYRON'S COMIC POEM. 'Farewell to Malta' was written on Byron's second visit to the island at the very end of his Grand Tour of the Continent, which had lasted nearly two years, and is dated a few days before his departure for England on the HMS Volage on 2 June 1811. In a letter to his travelling companion, John Cam Hobhouse on 3 November Byron refers to the poem as 'a copy of Hudibrastics' which he presented to Commander Fraser, because it contained a compliment to his wife. He did not intend 'the thing to be bandied about', he adds, but 'no sooner were we sailed than they were set in circulation, & I am told by a lately arrived traveller, that they are all, but particularly Oakes [Hildebrand Oakes, H.M. Commissioner for Malta], in a pucker, and yet I am sure there is nothing to annoy any body, or a single personal allusion throughout, as far as I remember, for I kept no copy'. This poem is thoroughly characteristic of Byron in his most humorously bantering vein, complete with atrocious rhymes ('yawn, Sirs'/ 'Dancers'; 'prate is'/ 'Gratis; 'got us'/ 'Hothouse'; 'uncivil'/ 'Devil', etc.). In it he addresses the superficiality of Maltese society and his dissatisfaction with and distain for nearly everything he encounters there - even the 'cursed streets of stairs' which he, with his lame foot, would have found challenging. Byron had sojourned in Malta at the beginning of his Tour in 1809, when he took up with Mrs Constance Spencer Smith, wife of British diplomat John Spencer Smith, immortalised by Byron as the 'New Calypso' of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and dedicatee of several poems. After travels in Albania, Greece and Turkey, he renewed his liaison with Mrs Spencer Smith on his return to Malta in 1811. The poem was first published in a pirated edition, Hone's sixth edition of Poems on his Domestic Circumstances, 1816, and was later included in the more authoritative Works of Lord Byron, 1832. It is collated in Jerome J. McGann's edition of The Complete Poetical Works, Vol. I, 1980, pp.338-340 and illustrated in Geoffrey Bond's Byron's Manor, Birthplace of his Poetry, 2024, nos 160 and 161, p.118. Provenance: Bonhams, 'Papers & Portraits: The Roy Davids Collection, Part II', lot 37; collection of Geoffrey Bond, Burgage Manor (bookplate). For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing