Memoirs of a libertine

'You have all discovered the terrible truth: that it is a long, dreary dissertation on Greek liberation and a diatribe against the Turks'

With Byron being all the rage again, it would be wonderful to be able to read his memoirs. Alas, although he did write them, they were tragically destroyed in the offices of his publisher, John Murray, in the company of his friends, John Cam Hobhouse and the Irish poet, Thomas Moore.

People have often wondered what exactly went on at that meeting. This, then, is my reconstruction of the fatal event...

The scene is John Murray's office, in 1824. The place is piled high with books. Enter John Cam Hobhouse.

Hobhouse: Deuced lot of books you've got there, Murray!

Murray: What? Oh, yes. We are about to publish something on the Royal Family. It always sells well.

Hobhouse: Not the old Prince of Wales marriage scandal again, Murray, I hope?

Murray: No, no. Just a volume of memoirs by a butler who used to work for him.

Hobhouse: Butler? All about wine and victuals, is it?

Murray: No – I think you may be pleasantly surprised there.

[Enter Thomas Moore.]

Moore: Top of the mornin' to ye, Murray! Ah, and a fine soft day it is, too!

Hobhouse: Morning, Moore.

Moore: Ah, young Hobhouse, by all that's wonderful! And a grand welcome to ye!

Murray: Tom, there's no need to play the stage Irishman here. You are among friends now. We all know you haven't spoken like that for years.

Moore: Sorry about that. It's expected of me the whole time, and I slip into it without thinking, so I do, and me looking a right eejit, oh God, there I go again.

Murray: Now, the public knows that before he died, Lord Byron completed his memoirs.

Hobhouse: Which, of course, would sell like wildfire.

Moore: Not wildfire, John.

Hobhouse: Why not?

Moore: Because wildfire doesn't sell. It spreads. It's hot cakes that sell. Remember what Lord Byron used to say: If you must use a cliché, use the right one.

Hobhouse: You've never liked me, have you, Moore?

Moore: No.

Murray: Gentlemen, gentlemen! No quarrelling, please. We are here to decide the fate of Byron's memoirs. The public, of course, will be hoping for a lurid diet of scandal in these pages. They will demand details of adultery, of escapades in Italy, of seductions in Sienese palaces...

Moore: Not to mention dastardly rumours of incest and worse.

Hobhouse: Worse?

Moore: Young boys, Hobhouse. You were at Cambridge with him, Hobhouse. Can you have forgotten what you got up to?

Hobhouse: Look, I...

Murray: Let me sum up, then, gentlemen. A volume full of dirt and devilry, of sex and salaciousness. You know what this means, do you?

Hobhouse: Yes. It means a monster bestseller.

Murray: It certainly does. Now, you have all read the memoirs.

Moore: We have.

Murray: And you have all discovered the terrible truth: that it is, in fact, a long, dreary dissertation upon the need for Greek liberation, and a diatribe against the Turks. Not an ounce of randy revelation in the whole damned volume.

Moore: Nobody will buy it.

Hobhouse: It's a dead duck.

Murray: Yes. It's remaindered before it's born. Unless... unless we were to destroy it.

Moore & Hobhouse: Destroy it!!

Murray: I've been thinking about this. If we were to burn the book, and give out heavy hints that it was far too wicked to be allowed to survive, nobody would ever know the truth...

Moore: Brilliant!

Hobhouse: I've got a match!

[Quickly, the turgid manuscript is crumpled up and duly incinerated in the fireplace.]

Moore: Oh, God, and isn't that a terrible thing, to see the burning of Byron's own blessed words...!

Murray: Shut up, Moore.

Moore: Sorry, Murray.

Murray: And don't forget, gentlemen, if asked: It was a work of such wickedness we could not let it live.

Moore: I'll not forget.

Hobhouse: Nor I.

If you know anything about publishing, you'll agree that this is the only likely scenario.