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Lot 97

BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD)
Autograph address panel and postscript with cut signature [n.p., n.d.]

Ending from 19 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, Knightsbridge

£800 - £1,200

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BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD)

Autograph address panel and postscript with cut signature ("Byron") affixed, to his solicitor John Hanson, requesting that "...this letter may be considered as definitive – I know not how to express my consent in stronger terms...", docketed "Lord Byron" in another hand top right corner, one page, dust-staining, spotting and discolouration, remains of tape and glue on reverse where previously fixed to album leaf and mounted, oblong 8vo (128 x 197mm.), [n.p., n.d.]

Footnotes

'THIS LETTER MAY BE CONSIDERED AS DEFINITIVE': A STRONGLY WORDED NOTE FROM BYRON TO HIS SOLICITOR.

Our postscript note is from a letter to Byron's friend, agent and advisor, the London solicitor John Hanson (1755-1841). He acted as guardian to a young Byron and continued to be a key figure in his life, and it is said profited greatly from the long-running dispute over Byron's estates in Rochdale, of which he was a trustee (see adjacent lot). He was notorious for overcharging Byron and it has been suggested that he and his son were able to get away with mismanaging the estates to their own advantage due to Byron's lack of interest in matters financial. The cut signature was seemingly added at a later date, possibly when the fragment was displayed in an album.

Provenance: Collection of Geoffrey Bond.

Additional information