Lord Byron’s Love Letter Summary

Lord Byron’s Love Letter

- Tennessee Williams

Brief Summary:

This funny sad one act play ‘Lord Byron’s Love Letter’ is set in the city of New Orleans in South America. During festivals or carnivals, many people from abroad as well from the northern part of the USA come to visit New Orleans to get romantic and adventurous experience. The old woman named Irenee (grandmother), the spinster (granddaughter), the Matron and her husband are the main characters of this play. The spinster and the old woman live in a dilapidated residence and play a confidence trick by showing the so called love letter of a famous poet Lord Byron. When the play opens, the old woman and the spinster are sitting in a dark parlour. The old woman is wearing a black silk dress and sitting doing nothing. On the other hand, the spinster is a woman of 40 and she is sewing something beside a rose-shaped lamp. It seems that the old woman is the grandmother of the spinster.  At the same time, their door bell tinkles as someone has come to visit their parlour. After this, the old woman goes behind the curtain and the spinster goes to the door to invite their guest. The visitor is a matron came from Milwaukee for Mardi Gras festival with her husband Winston Tutwiler who has worn a paper cap sprinkled with confetti. Matron is very interested in Lord Byron’s love letter and wants to see it. The spinster goes on describing very interesting event about how and where her grandmother happened to meet Lord Byron on the step of the Acropolis in Greece. He spent the final years of his wild life in Greece. He went in voluntary exile from England because of shameful talk about his involvement with his half-sister. He was fighting for freedom. He fought against the unbelievers. He swam across the Turkish strait and also burnt the dead body of Shelley. While listening to her, the drunkard husband fall asleep soon, but the matron listens to the spinster interestingly. When the matron wants to know how her grandmother met Lord Byron, the old woman replies that she met him on the steps of the Acropolis when she had gone there with her aunt for studying the classic remains of the oldest European civilization. After sharing the whole story about her meeting with Lord Byron, the old woman tells the spinster not to read the diary any more. She is asked to show them the letter. Then she moves to the poem written by her grandmother in the memory of Lord Byron. Finally, when she is showing the letter of Lord Byron from a distance, the noise of a band grows louder that awakens the husband. He suddenly goes out of the door asking his wife to follow him. He disappears in the crowd of people. The spinster and the old woman follow them to ask money but all in vain.  Because not getting any money, the old woman becomes angry. Then she tells her granddaughter Ariadne that her grandfather’s letter is laying on the floor. This shows that the letter is not genuine.  It’s not Lord Byron’s letter. In fact they cheat their visitors by showing the so-called love letter to earn their living.