8vo. In two volumes. [4], vi, vii, [1], 214; [4], v, [3], 224pp. With half-title to both volumes, engraved portrait frontispiece to vol. i and folding facsimile handwriting sample as frontispiece to vol. ii. Contemporary blind-stamped, gilt-tooled, calf-backed marbled boards. Rubbed and marked, spines sunned, light surface wear to corners and edges. Vol. i. a trifle cocked. Paper repairs to p.63-66 of vol. i. Spotting throughout.

A French edition of an infamous memoir of Byron by English poet and writer Thomas Medwin (1788-1869), perhaps better known as the biographer of his cousin Percy Shelley. Published just under three months after the great Romantic poet's death, Medwin's recollections of his friend received significant backlash, both personal and literary - among its detractors were Mary Shelley, Blackwood's Magazine, the Westminster Review, and Byron's mistress, Lady Caroline Lamb, who wrote Medwin scathing letters in response to his assertions about their affair. Maintaining a reputation for controversy until his death, Medwin eventually wrote a full Life of Shelley (1847), a strongly opinionated work which included personal attacks on his own enemies, and which was subsequently lambasted in The Atheneum itself.