Allegra Byron 1819 poem "Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation": In the next stanza he imagines her grown to a woman: "A wonder of this earth ... Like one of Shakespeare's women." Allegra Byron Clara Allegra Byron (12 January 1817 – 20 April 1822) was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont. Born in Bath, England, she was initially named Alba, meaning "dawn", or "white", by her mother. At first she lived with her mother, her mother's stepsister, Mary Shelley, and Mary's husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. When she was fifteen months old, she was turned over to
Lord Byron Byron first welcomed fame, he later turned from it by going into voluntary exile from Britain. The burning of Byron's memoir in the offices of his publisher John Murray a month after his death, and the suppression of details of Byron's bisexuality by subsequent heads of the firm (which held the richest Byron archive), distorted biographies. As late as the 1950s, scholar Leslie Marchard was expressly forbidden by the Murray company to reveal details of Byron's same-sex passions. The re-founding of the Byron Society in 1971 reflected the fascination that many people had with Byron and his work. This society