l Lord Byron
l Lord Byron
While often regarded as the original libertine, poet George Gordon Byron was born into the Romantic age a century or so later. In between penning lengthy narrative poems, Aberdeenshire-raised Byron ran up huge debts and had affairs with both sexes. Amid rumours of an affair with his half-sister, Byron travelled Italy and died of fever in Greece, aged 36.
l Marquis de Sade
Possibly the most notorious of all libertines, the aristocratic Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade cut a swathe through 18th and early 19th century France with a multitude of literary works that fused philosophy and sexual fantasy. De Sade lived his life as he wrote it, and spent some 32 years in prison, gifting the world the notion of sadism. De Sade embarked on a four-year affair with a 14-year-old before dying aged 74 in 1814.
l Peter Doherty
A man so in love with the image of a poet wastrel ruffian that he named his band The Libertines, Doherty became tabloid fodder, both for his misadventures with drugs and his high profile affair with model Kate Moss. Beyond all this lay a talented songwriter who inspired devotion among a young fan-base.
l Sebastian Horsley
Born in Yorkshire in 1962, and originally named Marcus, he cut a dash through Edinburgh's post-punk scene of the 1980s, was filmed being crucified in the Philippines so he could paint on the subject, wrote about how he preferred sex with prostitutes and held court to a Soho demi-monde. All of this was detailed in his 2007 autobiography, Dandy In The Underworld, which was turned into a play in 2010. Horsley attended the opening night, and was found dead of a heroin and cocaine overdose two days later.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article