FUGITIVE PIECES By George Gordon, Lord Byron
The first volume of Byr h's poetry, Fugitive Pieces, was printed late in 1806, when its author was a little more than eighteen years old. It was almost immediately withdrawn, on the recommendation of the Rev. J. T. Becher, to whom Byron had presented a copy. In January, 1807, he issued a second book, Poems on Various Occasions, incorporating the whole of the first volUme except the poems " To Mary " (the, alleged indecency of which had been the cause of the suppres- sion of Fugitive Pieces), " To Caroline " (the first of several with this title), and the second half of " To Miss E. P." Half of the contents of this volume reappeared in Byron's third book, Hours of Idleness (incorrectly described by many authorities, including the Cambridge History, as his second), , which was published later in the year. The present facsimile reproduction of Fugitive Pieces (Humphrey Milford. Columbia University Press. 13s. 6d.) has been made from the copy which Byron gave to Becher who, though censuring on moral grounds " To Mary," retained the volume for his own delec- tation. It offers a pleasant, and the only generally available, form of Byron's earliest work.
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