Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb (1785–1828) was a notable figure in the Regency period of British literature, recognized for her tumultuous personal life and literary contributions. Born to an aristocratic family, she received little formal education but was influenced by prominent political and literary circles, including the Whig society centered around Devonshire House. Lamb's marriage to William Lamb, later Lord Melbourne, initially appeared stable but was marred by tragedy and scandal, particularly due to her passionate and short-lived affair with the poet Lord Byron in 1812. This affair not only affected her personal life but also inspired her first novel, "Glenarvon," which satirized Byron and the society around her, marking it as an early critique of the Byronic hero. She went on to publish two additional novels and several poems, often responding to Byron's works. After a period of separation from her husband, Lamb struggled with alcoholism and ultimately passed away in 1828. Her complex legacy continues to intrigue, reflected in various artistic interpretations, including literature and film.
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Subject Terms
Lady Caroline Lamb
Writer
- Born: November 13, 1785
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: January 26, 1828
Biography
Lady Caroline Lamb lived one of the more interesting lives among the women novelists of the Regency period of British literary history. Her father, Frederick Ponsonby, was an Irish peer with the title of Lord Duncannon; in 1794, he became the third earl Bessborough. Her mother, Henrietta Frances, was a daughter of the first earl Spencer and younger sister to the duchess of Devonshire. Caroline, known to her family as Caro, was born in 1785, the fourth child and only daughter of her parents. Accounts of her childhood vary widely, but what is certain is that her mother suffered from ill health and Lamb was looked after by others, including her grandmother, the strict countess Spencer, and her aunt, the duchess, who lived at Devonshire House. Here, she enjoyed the company of her cousins, Harriet and Caro St. Jules, both the same age as Lamb. The children seem to have been largely unsupervised and Lamb certainly received little formal education, though it appears she was taken on a long journey through Italy.
Lamb seems to have developed as something of a fearless tomboy, although she was petite and remarkably pretty. Devonshire House was the center of Whig politics in London and Lord and Lady Melbourne, politically ambitious for their son, William Lamb, conceived of a match for him with Caroline. In any case, William fell in love with Caroline when she was just seventeen, and they were married shortly afterwards. At first they seemed happy together, but two of their children died in infancy in 1806 and 1809, and their surviving son, Augustus, born in 1807, was handicapped. The Lambs later adopted a daughter, Susan Churchill. Caroline Lamb was very influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vinidcation of the Rights of Women and became something of a self-taught bluestocking herself. William became engaged in a political career, becoming a member of Parliament in 1806.
The arrival of the twenty-four-year-old poet Lord Byron precipitated Lamb into scandal. She had an open affair with Byron in 1812, at the height of his popularity. It only lasted four months before Byron dropped her for Lady Oxford, but Lamb spent the next four years pursuing him, doing considerable damage to her husband’s career. Eventually Byron married, briefly, Lamb’s cousin, Annabella Milbanke.
Her affair with Byron led to Lamb’s first novel. Glenarvon was published anonymously in 1816, Lamb having kept its writing secret until the day of publication. It is a Gothic novel, with a Satanic villain clearly modeled on Byron, but it also satirizes her Whig coterie, which led to her ostracization from it. Her open avowal of her own infidelities put pressure on William to divorce her, although he did not, in fact, obtain a legal separation until 1825. Interest in Glenarvon now lies in its being the first critique of Byronism and the Byronic hero. The novel was reprinted four times in 1817, and was released in an American edition and a French translation.
Two other novels followed: Graham Hamilton (1822), and Ada Reiss (1823), about an Englishwoman’s love affair with a pirate. Lamb also wrote two long poems in reply to Byron’s verses in his Don Juan that satirized her and Regency society. Her poems, A New Canto (1819), and Gordon: A Tale (1821), are parodies of Byron’s Don Juan in ottava rima. Lamb also wrote verse for annuals, some of which were set to music, some of which were published posthumously by Isaac Nathan in 1829.
After her separation, she lived alone until her death in 1828 from edema, brought on by alcoholism. Her husband returned from political duties in Ireland to be with her. He did not remarry, becoming Lord Melbourne, the prime minister and trusted advisor to the young Queen Victoria. Lamb’s life provoked portraits in contemporary novels, such as Benjamin Disraeli’s Vivian Grey, and Mrs. Ward’s The Marriage of William Ash, and has continued to be the subject of artistic interest, as shown by Robert Bolt’s 1972 movie, Lady Caroline Lamb.