Fugitive Pieces

Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents was added by the transcriber.

Fugitive Pieces , Byron's first volume of verse, was privately printed in the autumn of 1806, when Byron was eighteen years of age. Passages in Byron's correspondence indicate that as early as August of that year some of the poems were in the printers' hands and that during the latter part of August and during September the printing was suspended in order that Byron might give his poems an entire new form. The new form consisted, in part, in an enlargement; for he wrote to Elizabeth Pigot about September that he had nearly doubled his poems partly by the discovery of some I conceived to be lost, and partly by some new productions. According to Moore, Fugitive Pieces was ready for distribution in November. The last poem in the volume bears the date of November 16, 1806.
A difficulty in supposing the date of completion of the volume to be about November 16 is that two copies contain inscriptions in Byron's hand with earlier dates. On the copy of the late Mr. J.A. Spoor, of Chicago, the inscription reads: October 21st Tuesday 1806—Haec poemata ex dono sunt—Georgii Gordon Byron, Vale. That on the copy in the Morgan library reads: Nov. 8, 1806, H.P.E.D.S.G.G.B., Southwell.—Vale!—Byron, the initials evidently standing for the Latin words of the preceding inscription. The Latin Vale in each inscription, however, suggests that it commemorates a leave-taking, the date referring not to the presentation but to the farewell.
It has been suggested that copies of the volume were distributed earlier than November and that some of the poems, printed separately and distributed in fly-leaf form, were added later. This would explain such discrepancies as the early dates of the inscriptions, and the presence of Byron's name on pages 46 and 48 in a volume otherwise anonymous, but there is little evidence to support it.
Moore's account of Fugitive Pieces is that it was distributed in November, Byron presenting the first copy to the Reverend J.T. Becher, prebendary of Southwell minster, who objected to what he considered the too voluptuous coloring of the poem To Mary. The objection led Byron to suppress the edition immediately, he himself burning nearly every copy. This account is corroborated in part by Miss Pigot and in part by Byron.