Lord Byron is the subject this month of a new biography by Fiona McCarthy and an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Both are concerned with the poet’s legend as much as his work. Byron, one of the first people to enjoy the sort of fame that became a curse in the 20th century, had a notoriously ironic and world-weary outlook. One point of this film is to insist that the work is worth considering for more than its “Byronic” elements.

Meanwhile, more is being discovered about the man Lady Caroline Lamb famously described as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. On that recommendation, literature students might just be inspired to pick up Don Juan.