Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Lamb
-
Standard Name: Lamb, Mary,, 1764 - 1847
Birth Name: Mary Anne Lamb
Nickname: Polly
Pseudonym: Sempronia
Used Form: Mary Anne Lamb
ML
is still known primarily as the sister of the essayist Charles Lamb
, and as the central character in a painful and sensational story. She was, however, the lead author in her three collaborations with Charles (Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, 1807, Mrs Leicester's School, 1808, and a book of verses for children) and sole author of a strongly feminist essay.
"Mary Lamb, 1764 - 1847" This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
MCC
later remembered her responsibility, when very young, of escorting her two next younger brothers to their school.
Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
10
Unlike them, she began her education at home. She writes fondly about the rich array of...
Family and Intimate relationships
Matilda Betham-Edwards
MBE
's mother was born Barbara Betham, a clergyman's daughter. Her father and one of her brothers had been scholarly authors, and she was, in her daughter Matilda's words, for her day, highly educated.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, 1898, p. vi, 354 pp.
111
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
Around 1801-2, Charles
and Mary Lamb
were said to have succeeded in talking [George Dyer
] into love with EOB
, but to have been unsuccessful in talking her into love with him. This...
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons, 1905.
69, 70
MMB
acquired a wide acquaintance in London. She became a close friend...
Friends, Associates
Mary Hays
After Wollstonecraft's death, and Fenwick's departure from England, it seems unlikely that MH
found female friends to replace them, though she knew well such people as Elizabeth Inchbald
, Anna Letitia Barbauld
, and Charles
Friends, Associates
William Hazlitt
Sarah was a close friend of Mary Lamb
(who tried without success to get her to see her divorce as a serious matter: Sarah was focussed, at least publicly, on the adventure of travelling to...
Friends, Associates
Jane Welsh Carlyle
Despite her ill health, the couple entertained regularly. Their guests included John Stuart Mill
, Henry Taylor
, and Leigh Hunt
. JWC
became especially fond of Hunt and Mill.
Surtees, Virginia. Jane Welsh Carlyle. Michael Russell, 1986.
While serving his sentence in the Surrey Gaol in Horsemonger Lane (missing his family and ill with lung disease caused by confinement), LH
received as visitors Maria Edgeworth
, William Hazlitt
, Jeremy Bentham
,...
MCC
's parents frequently entertained eminent literary figures in a drawing-room where the paintings were all executed by distinguished friends. At an early age she became acquainted with Charles
and Mary Lamb
, Leigh Hunt
Friends, Associates
Lucy Aikin
Henry Crabb Robinson
, visiting LA
with Charles
and Mary Lamb
, reported Aikin as admiring both the wit and the fine face of Lamb.
Robinson, Henry Crabb. Diary.
34
Friends, Associates
Anna Letitia Barbauld
ALB
met Charles Lamb
and his sister Mary
. Charles had already, in the privacy of a letter, railed at the cursed Barbauld Crew whose didactic tales had driven out old, wild tales,
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
William Godwin
's five-act versetragedyAntonio was performed for the first and last time at Drury Lane
. It was rejected by the audience, not with hissing but with coughing.
10 December 1806
Charles Lamb
's farceMr H— opened at Drury Lane
. Its dashing coxcomb protagonist cuts a swathe through the ladies at Bath until it comes out that his name is Hogsflesh, when they drop him hurriedly.
1823
John Mitford
published A Description of the Crimes and Horrors in the Interior of Warburton
's Private Mad-House at Hoxton, Commonly Called Whitmore House: in one of these the writer Mary Lamb
had been confined.
By Christmas 1869
Francis Galton
, mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,
By 26 October 1972
Helen Gardner
edited The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950, designed to update and replace Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
's Oxford Book of English Verse, 1900.
Texts
Lamb, Mary, and Charles Lamb. Mrs Leicester’s School. M. J. Godwin, 1808.
Lamb, Mary. “On Needle-Work”. British Lady’s Magazine.
Lamb, Mary, and Charles Lamb. Poetry for Children. M. J. Godwin, 1809.
Lamb, Mary, and Charles Lamb. Tales from Shakespear. M. J. Godwin, 1807.
Lamb, Charles, and Mary Lamb. The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb. Editor Marrs, Edwin J., Cornell University Press, 1975.
Lamb, Charles, and Mary Lamb. The Letters of Charles Lamb. Editor Lucas, Edward Verrall, J. M. Dent, 1935.
Lamb, Charles, and Mary Lamb. The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. Editor Lucas, Edward Verrall, Methuen, 1905.