Throughout his professional life, the poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852) was variously celebrated and vilified for both his verse and his politics. Born in Dublin, he remained an ardent Irish patriot until his death. This eight-volume collection of Moore's memoirs, diaries and letters, edited by his friend Lord John Russell (1792-1878) and first published between 1853 and 1856, provides rare insights into a man whose genius was applauded by the Morning Chronicle as 'embracing almost all sides of imaginative literature, of criticism and philosophy'. Volume 4 contains Moore's diary for the period 1822-5, during which time his reputation for sensuousness and political satire was confirmed with the publication of The Loves of the Angels (1823) and Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823). The volume opens with engravings of his fellow radical poet Samuel Rogers and the cottage at Mayfield where Moore wrote much of Lalla Rookh.
