Lord Byron is as famous for scandalous affairs, incest with his half-sister and a heroic death in Greece as he is for poetry.

Yet newly discovered records suggest that those exploits were tame by his family’s standards. Not for nothing was his great-uncle William, 5th Baron Byron, remembered as “the wicked lord” — an epithet he was known to revel in.

William, who succeeded to the title and estates at age 13, went on to kill a cousin, abduct an actress and squander a fortune. In a new book, the historian Emily Brand reveals untold adventures and sheds light on the murky outrages of Byron’s 18th century forebears, including (but not limited to) homicide, cowardice and cuckoldry.