The Politics of Paradise: A Vindication of Byron

Distinguished British parliamentarian and former leader of the Labour Party Foot has written a splendid book that presents Byron as a true "poet of the revolution," a man of great courage and imagination who never wavered from his ideals of freedom and his hatred of the twin evils of war and orthodox religion. Foot's Byron is thus an important counterbalance to the Byron offered by Malcolm Kelsall's Byron's Politics (Barnes & Noble, 1987) , a conservative aristocrat who achieved nothing for political reform. Foot includes much lengthy quotation from the poems and letters and some helpful bibliographic commentary. Above all, he writes with such eloquence and authority, and such an obvious love of his subject, that this book will be enjoyed by general reader and specialist alike.- Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.