THE manuscript of one of the greatest poems of the 19th century – Lord Byron’s Don Juan – will go on display at the National Library of Scotland from Thursday to mark the 200th anniversary of its publication.

Don Juan is widely regarded as Byron’s masterpiece and led

Sir Walter Scott to make comparisons with Shakespeare. A long poem divided into sections known as cantos, it was unfinished at the time of his death in 1824.

National Librarian John Scally said: “Lord Byron was at the height of his powers when he penned Don Juan. His intent was to expose the hypocrisies of British society as much as it was to shock with depictions of war, slave markets, harems, and perhaps most famously, the protagonist’s litany of love affairs.”