Byron Letters Fetch Half a Mil

It may be a bad time to raise venture capital, apply for a personal loan or flip a house, but apparently, the written word is so rare these days that it can still command a pretty penny.

A collection of letters written by British Romantic poet Lord Byron have sold at auction in London for almost half a million dollars (£277,250) — almost twice what they were expected to fetch.

The letters — 71 pages of them — were written to Byron's friend Francis Hodgson between 1808 and 1821 and contain many previously unpublished passages. Sotheby's told Reuters that as much as 15 percent of the letters have never been made public. In the letters, Byron details an affair with a servant girl and refers to fellow Romantic poet William Wordsworth as "Turdsworth" (sour grapes, perhaps?). 

Lord Byron, whose full name was George Gordon Byron, was considered to be something of a bad boy (his contemporaries would have called him a "cad") because of his tendency towards excess in love and money (and judging by the picture at left, he got away with it because he was a total hottie!). In his short life (he died at 36) he amassed debt and was known to have had love affairs with women, men, distant cousins, and possibly even his sister. Despite all the dalliances, he still managed to write prolifically, penning such classic lines as "She walks in beauty like the night" and the epic satirical poem "Don Juan."

The letters came from the library of former Prime Minister Archibald Primrose, the Earl of Rosebery, who bought the letters in 1885 and kept them in his family. No word on the buyer.

And while we're on the topic (one doesn't get to write about Romantic poets every day, after all): Is it just me, or is Byron a much more compelling character than John Keats, the subject of Jane Campion's newest release "Bright Star?" No offense to Campion, but Keats' life was really kind of boring, what with his poverty, fidelity and sickly spells. Byron on the other hand seems like a Hollywood star in the making: he travelled, fought in wars, hopped from bed to bed and generally lived life large. Screenplay anyone?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.