Shortly before he died in 1824, famed poet George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, bequeathed his desk to his valet. He himself had often hated this mahogany desk with its dozen secret drawers, its rickety legs which folded up so that it could be carried about like a trunk, its green-baize writing board, its little pigeonholes for ink and sand and quill. He had used it most in moments of depression; waking up in Italy after a night of debauch, he would sit before it for an hour or more, trying to trace out some...
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