ABSTRACT

Byron, Childe Harold, I-II (1812); British Critic, XXXIX (May 1812), 478-482. The quarto edition of 500 copies, issued on March 10, 1812, was sold out in three days. That this review of that edition did not appear until May suggests either that the British Critic was in no hurry to notice the poem (neither its position in the journal nor the tone of the review is particularly favorable) or that Murray held back the review copy for the British Critic until the poem established itself.