".
Thus, Byron's literary profile was kept alive by the continuing success of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers and his new manuscript was in the publisher's hands. On the 10 February 1812 an advance notice of publication appeared in The Morning Chronicle, beginning and ending with the 'name' Byron in capital letters, a blatant 'Branding' technique. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is de-politicised by being marketed as a Travelogue, an increasingly popular genre during this time of restricted travel. As Mason notes, Murray limits newspaper advertisements and relies on Byron himself to increase his visibility, which he does by associating with the leading authors of Regency London socially and with the powerful political leaders of the day when he 'performs' his maiden speech in the House of Lords on 27 February 1812. As the Bill had already been passed, the speech would have no political effect, but it did provide high profile publicity for Byron, whose exploits were reported in The Morning Chronicle amongst others, also mentioning his 'talents' and 'literary pretentions'. Simultaneously, previews of Childe Harold: A Romaunt appeared; one by George Ellis.
Initially Childe Harold's Pilgrimage opens with a quotation by Louis-Charles Fougeret. In it he declares that all the countries he had visited are as bad as each other. As Ben Colbert reasons, this is Byron subverting the supposed values of the traditional Grand Tour and establishes the tone of the work to come – nothing is as it seems. The subtitle 'A Romaunt' is also misleading, and could be a cynical attempt to 'novelize' the volume for a female audience. 21 Thus the reader is pre-sented with a medieval young man, the 'childe' being an archaism describing a young knight, as-sumed to be embarking on a romantic or even religious pilgrimage across foreign lands. Byron quotes Edmund Spenser and James Beattie to give authority, and writes in Spenserian stanzas of nine lines of rhyming verse, also peppering the syntax with archaisms such as 'wight', 'whilholm', 'ee ' and 'mote' to evoke a specifically medieval timbre.
