Subjects
The Works of Lady Caroline Lamb
Editors: Leigh Wetherall Dickson and Malcolm Paul Douglass, Jr
The Pickering Masters
978 1 85196 902 9: 234x156mm: £275.00/$495.00
This is the first scholarly critical edition of the works of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785–1828), the late Romantic-era novelist now most famous for her adulterous affair with Lord Byron. Her first novel, Glenarvon, is a scandalous roman à clef which hinges upon the relationship’s break-up. However, it also indicts Lamb’s friends and family as a morally bankrupt and ineffective aristocracy. Her familiarity with and criticism of the power structures of her time, mean that her novels deserve to be viewed within their wider cultural and historical contexts.
From birth, the intersecting worlds of politics and fashion surrounded Lamb. She was born into the heart of the ultra-cosmopolitan, politically frustrated Whig opposition. She was married to William Lamb, later Lord Melbourne and first prime minister to Queen Victoria. Her aunt was Georgiana, fifth Duchess of Devonshire. The Prince Regent was godfather to her only son. Her intellectual endeavours were supported by Edward and Rosina Bulwer Lytton, William Godwin, Lady Morgan, Amelia Opie, Elizabeth Benger and Elizabeth Spence. Culturally, she is an influential link between second-generation Romantic and first-generation Victorian writers.
This is the first edition to present Lamb’s works in a scholarly format. Graham Hamilton and Ada Reis have never been republished, and Gordon: A Tale has been misattributed to Byron. This edition will appeal to scholars of Romanticism and Women’s Writing.
- Situates Lamb’s literary achievements within the wider context of her Whig allegiances, her sense of noblesse oblige and her promotion of aristocratic reform
- Ada Reis and Graham Hamilton have never been republished before, Gordon: A Tale has been wrongly attributed to Byron
- All texts are newly reset and editorial material includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes and endnotes.
Contents
Volume 1: Glenarvon (1816)
The famously scandalous roman à clef that not only hinged upon Lamb’s adulterous relationship with Lord Byron, but also indicted Lamb’s immediate circle of friends and extended family as a dissolute and ineffective aristocracy. Set during the 1798 Irish uprising, Lamb offers a sympathetic view of republicanism at a time of anti-republican feeling.
Volume 2: Graham Hamilton (1822)
Owing a debt to Frances Burney’s Evelina, which Lamb fully acknowledges, Graham Hamilton is a young man’s entry into the dazzling but dissolute sphere of London society. With money at his disposal, unlike much of his new acquaintance, the eponymous hero struggles to maintain his integrity whilst trying to salvage the reputation of an inveterate lady gambling addict, based upon Lamb’s mother, Lady Bessborough, and her beloved aunt, Georgiana, the 5th Duchess of Devonshire.
Volume 3: Ada Reis – A Tale (1823)
An Oriental, apocalyptic tale that sees the eponymous character awaiting the fulfilment of a Faustian pact with the devil for himself and his daughter, which comes true with a predictably double edged accuracy. His daughter does indeed wear an imperial crown, but as the Queen of Hell with a distinctly Byronic consort. However, this Hell, recognisably influenced by Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Inferno and Beckford’s Vathek, is constructed to Lamb’s own unique specifications; based upon the architecture of Devonshire House, this is a distinctively aristocratic Hell, where their sins of the abuse of power and privilege are punished and in which Lamb makes an appearance as herself.