I read Twitter a lot, you know, as one does, and a couple of months ago I saw a viral tweet that made me think, I must know more.

It was by the journalist Sarah Geh Young. It said, people keep asking for my opinion on cancel culture.

And the only thing I have to say is that the Atlantic was nearly destroyed in 1869 by thousands of subscription cancellations over an article by Harriet Beatrice Stowe, insinuating that Lord Byron effed his sister.

Then there was another tweet.

The best part of this saga being that he most

certainly did. Like I said, I had to know more.

This is Decodering, a show about cracking cultural mysteries. I'm Willa Paskin.

Every episode we take on a cultural question, habit, or idea, crack it open and try to figure out

what it means and why it matters. 150 years ago, Lord Byron and Harriet Beatrice Stowe collided

in the pages of the Atlantic. The resulting smash-up endangered in August

American publication altered the reputations of two of the most famous in their time authors

that have ever lived, and most lastingly, besmirched the less famous woman at the Stories Center.

At issue were so many of the topics that are still consuming us today.

Civility, celebrity, feminism, fairness, fake news, and bad literary men. Also, it's hell

juicy. So today, on decodering, what did cancel culture look like in the 1860s?

There are three major players in the story.

The romantic poet Lord Byron, his wife, Lady Byron, born Annabella Milbank, and the American author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher

Stowe. I'm going to begin with Lord Byron because in addition to being the oldest of the three,

his gargantuan celebrity and its incredible longevity are the stage upon which all of this plays out.

One way to see this whole incident is as a referendum on the shifting meaning of Byron,

a poet whose most lasting legacy was not his poetry, but himself.

He's had this incredible cultural impact, possibly more than any other figure among the romantic poets,

...