Allegra Byron

Who was Allegra Byron?

Clara Allegra Byron, initially named Alba, meaning "dawn," or "white," by her mother, was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont, the stepsister of Mary Shelley.

Born in Bath, England, she initially lived with her mother and Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, but was turned over to Byron when she was fifteen months old. She lived most of her short life with boarders chosen by Byron or in a Roman Catholic convent, where she died at age five of typhus or malaria. She was visited only intermittently by her father, who displayed inconsistent paternal interest in her.