Lord Byron’s unfinished poem Don Juan contained 16 completed cantos when he died.
Byron began Don Juan in 1819 and continued writing it until his death in 1824. The poem retells the legendary seducer’s story with a deliberately comic and satirical emphasis, reversing the usual portrayal by making Juan more acted upon than aggressively seductive. Its ottava rima stanzas allow Byron to move rapidly between narrative, jokes, social criticism, and digression.
Sixteen cantos were completed, while a seventeenth canto remained unfinished. Byron’s death in Greece prevented the poem from reaching its planned conclusion, so no final ending by Byron exists. Publishers and later editors sometimes present additional fragments or continuation material, which can make the total seem different.
The poem is not the same as the later theatrical legend associated with Don Juan Tenorio or the opera Don Giovanni. Byron’s version is a major English satirical poem, notable for its attacks on hypocrisy, politics, war, fashionable society, and literary convention.