14 h 32 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 357 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 357 pagesAbout this book
What if the famous seducer is a kind young man swept along by everyone else’s desires?
In Lord Byron’s long comic poem Don Juan, a young Spaniard’s careful upbringing offers little protection against love and scandal. His mother, Donna Inez, wants him pure and respectable. Donna Julia, a clever married woman, unsettles those plans. Juan’s journey opens in Seville, where desire and the need to appear virtuous pull in different directions.
Beyond Seville lie shipwreck, an island romance, a sultan’s palace and fashionable drawing rooms. Yet Juan shares the stage with a narrator who refuses to stay on course. He interrupts adventures with jokes, complaints and attacks on hypocrisy. Byron’s satire turns from love to war and politics, asking why people condemn desire while excusing cruelty and the abuse of power.
What you’ll discover
- An unexpected romantic hero Meet a good-natured Juan who is pursued more often than he pursues.
- Love on a Greek island Encounter Haidee, the pirate’s daughter who finds Juan washed onto the shore.
- A narrator without restraint Follow a restless voice that leaves the plot behind to joke, complain and challenge.
- Society caught pretending Watch Byron expose the distance between respectable appearances and the desires beneath them.
- Verse with a comic turn Discover ottava rima, where alternating rhymes lead into a closing pair of lines.
Who will love it
For readers who love wit, travel and satire, with love affairs, shipwrecks and adventures at royal courts. Byron’s comic poem also welcomes anyone who enjoys a narrator who mocks hypocrisy, war and fashionable society.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A boy raised by a learned mother
- A first love with a married woman
- Shipwreck, hunger and hard choices
- An island idyll with Haidee
- A slave market and a sultan's palace
- War at Ismail, seen without glamour
- From Catherine's court to English drawing rooms
- What the poem is really about
- How the poem is told
Who’s who
- Don JuanA handsome, kind and rather passive young Spaniard who is swept from one adventure and one love affair to the next, never quite choosing his path.
- Donna InezJuan's learned and proud mother, who plans his education with great care and wants to keep him pure and respectable.
- Donna JuliaA clever young married woman in Seville who argues herself into a love affair with Juan and then must face the cost.
- HaideeA young Greek island woman, daughter of a pirate, who finds Juan on the shore and gives him her whole heart.
- GulbeyazThe proud, powerful favourite wife of the Sultan, who buys Juan and expects his love as if it were her right.
- The narratorA witty, restless voice, close to Byron himself, who tells the story and keeps interrupting it with jokes, opinions and complaints.
- Lady Adeline AmundevilleA brilliant English hostess and leader of fashionable society who takes Juan under her wing at Norman Abbey.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 14 h 32 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in, 357 pages: USD 12.95 when you start free, USD 18.95 on its own.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in, 357 pages: USD 19.95 when you start free, USD 25.95 on its own.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Don Juan
by Lord Byron · 1819
A scandal sends young Juan into a world of love, shipwreck and war, while a witty narrator mocks society.
Challenging10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Don Juan is a long comic poem by Lord Byron, written between 1818 and 1823 and left unfinished when he died in 1824 in Greece. It runs to sixteen full cantos and part of a seventeenth.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy raised by a learned mother
The poem opens in Seville, where Juan is born to Don Jose and Donna Inez. The narrator says at once that he wants a hero, and that every year brings a new one, so he will choose the old Juan, a name everyone knows from the stage and the legend. He then sets his hero in a house at war with itself.
Don Jose is a careless man who has affairs and spends more than he has. Donna Inez is proud of her learning and her virtue. She knows mathematics, Latin and a good deal of morals, and she watches her husband for faults. Byron makes sly fun of her, and most readers see in her a comic portrait of his own wife, though he denied it.
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What is Don Juan by Byron about?
It follows a young Spaniard, Juan, through love affairs, a shipwreck, a Turkish harem, a war and the courts of Russia and England, while a witty narrator mocks hypocrisy, war and society.
Is Byron's Don Juan the same as the legend of the seducer?
Byron uses the old Spanish legend but reverses it. His Juan is not a cold seducer who is punished. He is an innocent and good-natured young man, pursued by women and swept along by events.
Why is Don Juan unfinished?
Byron began it in 1818 and kept adding cantos for years. He died in 1824 in Greece with sixteen cantos and part of a seventeenth written, and he never settled on a final plan.
The author
Lord Byron
1788–1824 · English Romantic poet
Lord Byron (1788–1824) was an English poet born in London. He lived in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Greece. He wrote Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, published between 1812 and 1818, and Don Juan, published in parts from 1819 to 1824. He died at Missolonghi in Greece.
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