Lord Byron is a statue depicting Greece in the form of a woman crowning Byron. The statue is by the French sculptors Henri-Michel Chapu and Alexandre Falguière. Since 2008, the anniversary of Byron's death, 19 April, has been honoured in Greece as "Byron Day". Upon his death, the barony passed to Byron's cousin George Anson Byron, a career naval officer. Byron described his first intense feelings at age eight for his distant cousin, Mary Duff: My mother used always to rally me about this childish amour, and at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day, 'O
Lord Byron became very active, publishing an annual journal. Thirty-six Byron Societies function throughout the world, and an International Conference takes place annually. Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as a poet is higher in many European countries than in Britain or America, although not as high as in his time, when he was widely thought to be the greatest poet in the world. Byron's writings also inspired many composers. Over forty operas have been based on his works, in addition to three operas about Byron himself (including Virgil Thomson's "Lord Byron"). His poetry was