Byron’s works pose formidable challenges for textual scholarship. His manuscripts are sometimes barely legible. He usually wrote on whatever scraps of paper came to hand, with many words scratched out and second thoughts squeezed in between the lines. He sometimes turned the page sideways and wrote new lines of verse crosswise over the existing ones. He rarely dated his manuscripts. He wrote fast and not always carefully. He often relied on other people to copy his manuscripts and edit them for publication. He harassed his publishers with letters containing additions, corrections and revisions. He treated proofreading as an extension of composition, often making significant changes. Modern editors have a dauntingly large amount of material to work with, including multiple manuscripts of poems, fair copies in other hands, corrected proofs, and letters between Byron and his publishers. His mature works all appeared in several editions in his lifetime and the texts of these editions vary significantly. Sometimes Byron made revisions or corrected errors in new editions, and sometimes other people introduced changes, with or without his consent. Many spurious or dubious poems have at different times been considered part of Byron’s oeuvre. For all these reasons, his works descend to us with very high levels of bibliographical and textual complexity.