The turbulent poet Byron is the subject of a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and a new biography by Fiona MacCarthy. Both explore his famously flamboyant personal life.
On today’s programme John Murray - whose family firm published Byron - described his extraordinary celebrity. But poet Brian Patten thinks the myth which surrounds Byron obscures the fact that his contemporary Keats was the better writer.
Click below to listen to Brian Patten reading poetry by both Byron and Keats to decide who was best.
