Greatest crime in literary history: The burning of Byron's memoirs

[C C]

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public...for-piety/

EXCERPT: [...] The poet invited conjecture not only about his work but also about his personal life [...] It is a wonderful dramatic irony, then, that Byron’s memoirs – which might have finally provided the “truth” about his life – were destroyed soon after his death. The story goes that three of his closest friends (his publisher, John Murray; his fellow celebrity poet, Thomas Moore; and his companion since his Cambridge days, John Cam Hobhouse), together with lawyers representing Byron’s half-sister and his widow, decided that the manuscript was so scandalous, so unsuitable for public consumption, that it would ruin Byron’s reputation forever. Gathered in Murray’s drawing room in Albemarle Street, they ripped up the pages and tossed them into the fire. The incident is often described as the greatest crime in literary ­history. It has certainly served to fuel curiosity and conjecture about Byron’s personal life for another couple of centuries. What was the damning secret his friends needed to protect? Domestic abuse? Sodomy? Incest? Probably all three, we imagine.

In the title essay of his collection The Burning of Byron’s Memoirs: New and unpublished essays and papers, Peter Cochran provides the full correspondence between the principal figures in the lead-up to the memoirs’ destruction. It is astonishing that not one of these letters expressed the view that denying the world a work by one of its most revered writers would be an act of barbarism. Instead, at a time when autobiography was considered slightly unseemly, Byron’s friends were zealously committed to “protecting” his family and “preserving” his fame. Cochran argues, however, that there were other reasons behind the decision, mostly involving self-interest and petty jealousy...

[Ben the Donkey]

A shame indeed - I had no idea.

Still, though, I wonder what effect it would really have. I'm not comfortable with the idea of having a writer's works demystified by knowing the specifics of his life, although in Byron's case it might be... illuminating, rather than reeking of lasciviousness. 

When I was a youngster, I read Conan novels. Imagine my disappointment when I read of the life of Robert E Howard. 
I still wonder, sometimes, what my enjoyment of those novels would have been if I'd read of his life first. Perhaps it would have made no difference.

Beside which, while certainly a crime, it could not by any means be described as the "greatest" crime in literary history. The great library of Alexandria was burned on more than one occasion, and the deprecation of various zealots in the name of religion have much to answer for.

Sappho, by way of example, is one of those authors who have a profound effect even upon language itself (sapphic, lesbian) and yet little of her work survives other than some tantalising fragments, due to the above two factors (among other things).

[C C]

The almost complete eradication of the Mayan codices might be another (though the applicable archeologists and socio-political camps probably wallow in the horror of that more than anyone else).

On the surface it doesn't stand out as being driven by motives of post-colonial revisionism... But there is a body of work that inclines history toward the view that the Library of Alexandria gradually faded away and perished in the end from a lack of funding and declining interest from abroad. Before that bureaucratic neglect crept in, structure was repaired and lost manuscripts were often replaced with copies from elsewhere, when the occasional riot or violent event over the centuries really did inflict some damage and loss. Even the last supposed "fire event" attributed to Muslim armies -- that would have destroyed by then a mere remnant collection of better days -- is treated with skepticism.

Here's a single article that tries to thread together a few of those mythos-busting trends: The Great Library at Alexandria was destroyed by budget cuts, not fire

[Ben the Donkey]

I knew that about the Great Library when I wrote that post. As much as I hate religion (in general) I wouldn't stoop to revisionist history in order to demonize anyone, Roman, Muslim or other.
The Muslim Caliphates were more interested in  preserving knowledge than losing it - generally speaking of course. The Abbasid, in particular, were the zenith, perhaps, of Muslim reverence for knowledge during that period of history, although they came along a little later. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Arabic advances in knowledge over the centuries during which Europe was going through it's "dark ages" (more on that some other time, perhaps).  

I still believe, though, that much was lost by deliberate destructive method - I mentioned Sappho's works in particular, as they are an example of something noted as having been present but lost, and the Great Library certainly was subject to deprecation more than once throughout its history (no smoke without fire, being apropos). Your article notes it had been much reduced by the point of eventual Muslim destruction and attempts to downplay that final loss, but I'd still find it hard to believe it was chiefly administrative documentation that Caliph Omar destroyed... that seems a little over simplified and revisionist in itself.