Don Juan

Don Juan is an English unfinished satirical epic poem written by Lord Byron between 1819 and 1824 that portrays the Spanish folk legend of Don Juan, not as a womaniser as historically portrayed, but as a victim easily seduced by women. Don Juan is a poem written in ottava rima and presented in 16 cantos in which Lord Byron derived the character of Don Juan from traditional Spanish folk legends; however, the story was very much his own. Upon publication in 1819, cantos I and II were widely criticised as immoral because Byron had so freely ridiculed the social subjects and public figures of his time. At his death in 1824, Lord Byron had completed 16 of 17 cantos, whilst canto XVII remained unfinished.

Byron was a prolific writer, for whom "the composition of his great poem, Don Juan, was coextensive with a major part of his poetical life"; he wrote the first canto while resident in Italy in 1818, and the 17th canto in early 1823. Canto I was written between July and September 1818, and Canto II was written from December 1818 to January 1819. Cantos III and IV were written in the winter of 1819–1820 and canto V was written in October–November 1820. Cantos I and II were published on 15 July 1819, and cantos III, IV, and V were published on 8 August 1821.

Byron began to write canto VI in June 1822, and had completed writing canto XVI in March 1823. Given the moralistic notoriety of the satirical, epic poem, John Murray refused to publish the latter cantos of Don Juan, which then were entrusted to John Hunt, who published the cantos over a period of months; cantos VI, VII, and VIII, with a Preface, were published on 15 July 1823; cantos IX, X, and XI were published on 29 August 1823; cantos XII, XIII, and XIV were published on 17 December 1823; and cantos XV and XVI on 26 March 1824.