The seriousness of Langley Moore's scholarship impelled her to write about Byron beyond his grave, and she had a wicked time with the aftermath, and aftermyth, of his death – upon the news of which greed, pomposity and celebrity by association broke out, as did aggrieved spats among friends and relations. Moore came of age in the Lytton Strachey era of shrewd biographical insight and sharp tongue, and her tart tone is perfect to record those who lived to be prosy Victorians, while the poet died defiantly Georgian. In the first chapter, Byron's publisher burns his probably not-that-scandalous memoirs. Thereafter woes multiplied. The executors paid off Lord B's retinue, including the black courier who called him "Massa" and the unfrocked Italian priest, who invested the bounty in a macaroni factory that failed. And that was a good outcome, relatively. "Augusta [Leigh, Byron's half-sister] as an irritant" reads one of DLM's crisp page-headings, though to be honest, it could have been the title of the book. He was well off out of it.