Mary Lamb

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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.
Image of the head of Mary Lamb, 1764 - 1847, from a portrait of her with her brother Charles, by Francis Stephen Cary, 1834. She looks straight at the viewer; her face and some visible black hair are encircled by a white ruffled cap tied with a broad, dark ribbon, and she wears a black cloak.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Charlotte Yonge
CM's preface (dated March 1870) says that as a child she preferred the inherited books of the former generation to any moderns except Maria Edgeworth .
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan.
1: v
She mentions two imitations (by Mary Martha Sherwood
Friends, Associates Dorothy Wordsworth
DW 's correspondents included Maria Jane Jewsbury and Mary Ann Lamb . She was very close to Coleridge , who settled at Greta Hall near Keswick to be near the Wordsworths at Grasmere in June...
Health Priscilla Wakefield
A report into abuses at a private madhouse at Hoxton, John Mitford 's Description of the Crimes and Horrors, 1825, describes the fate of a Mrs. Wakefield, the authoress of many good books...
Literary responses Evelyn Sharp
Beverly Lyon Clark , who wrote an introduction to this book and thought extremely highly of it, argued that the neglect of it stemmed from its belonging not just to one but to several under-appreciated...
Textual Production Gladys Henrietta Schütze
Again she used the pen-name of Henrietta Leslie. She dedicated the book For Peter and it appeared with Galsworthy's foreword, which welcomes its unusual presentation of the war as it was or seemed to...
Textual Production Christina Rossetti
In 1856, CR published an historical short story, The Lost Titian, in The Crayon, a small magazine published in New York.
Smulders, Sharon. Christina Rossetti Revisited. Twayne.
100
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking.
176-9
. She also wrote some non-fiction on Italian writers (including...
Education Carola Oman
The children's great delight was their mother reading aloud: theLamb s' Tales from Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott 's poems, William Edmonstoune Aytoun 's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, 1865, Mary Martha Sherwood
Textual Production E. Nesbit
This by no means exhausts the list of EN 's writings for children. The first number of The Enchanted Castle (which is less episodic, perhaps less brilliant, and more socially critical than the Phoenix or...
Friends, Associates Leigh Hunt
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 ,...
Friends, Associates Fanny Holcroft
She and her younger siblings were known to Charles and Mary Lamb , to their friend Thomas Manning , and to Mary Matilda Betham and her family.
Lamb, Charles, and Mary Lamb. The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb. Editor Marrs, Edwin J., Cornell University Press.
3:3, 116-18 and n4, 166-7, 207
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 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
Occupation William Godwin
The imprint M. J. Godwin and Company was launched the following year. The business flourished, becoming almost a literary salon like that of Joseph Johnson : visitors included Germaine de Staël . It remained, however...
Friends, Associates Eliza Fenwick
Other more or less radical friends of EF included Thomas Holcroft , Anne Plumptre , Elizabeth Benger , Jane Porter , Henry Crabb Robinson , Charles and Mary Lamb , and their friend Sarah Stoddart
Wealth and Poverty Eliza Fenwick
Mary Lamb 's mention, in a context of her own money troubles, of a recent, memorable visit from EF probably relates to this event. Nearly two years later, on 12 November 1807, Mary Hays sent...

Timeline

By June 1796: Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet...

Writing climate item

By June 1796

Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet titled Sonnets from Various Authors: four each by himself, Southey , Charles Lamb , and Charles Lloyd , two by Charlotte Smith , and one each by seven more writers including Anna Seward .

13 December 1800: William Godwin's five-act verse tragedy Antonio...

Writing climate item

13 December 1800

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 farce Mr H— opened at Drury...

Writing climate item

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...

Building item

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,...

Writing climate item

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...

Writing climate item

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.