The Corsair

The Corsair (1814) is a long tale in verse written by Lord Byron (see 1814 in poetry) and published by John Murray in London.

It was extremely popular, selling ten thousand copies on its first day of sale, and was influential throughout the following century, inspiring operas, music and ballet.

The poem, divided into cantos (like Dante's Divine Comedy), narrates the story of the corsair or privateer Conrad.

In this 180-page tale, the figure of the Byronic hero emerges, "that man of loneliness and mystery" who perceives himself a "villain", an anti-hero.

In the final scene, Conrad departs from the island alone, without Gulnare: "He left a Corsair's name to other times,/ Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes."

French painter Eugène Delacroix depicted a scene from the work in a watercolor, Episode from The Corsair (1831), which shows Gulnare visiting the imprisoned Conrad in his cell.