Biography of Lady Caroline Lamb

Lady Caroline Lamb by John Hoppner, taken from Wikipedia.org

By: Scott Postulo

When looking at Lady Caroline Lamb’s life and career, it can be difficult to separate the facts from the patriarchal bias of the nineteenth century.  Because many of her achievements in writing are either directly in conversation with, or allegedly inspired by her association with the poet Lord Byron, historians tend to define her by this relationship.  Through the memoirs of her friend Lady Sydney Morgan however, we are able to witness a more sympathetic account of Caroline Lamb with which we can attempt to reconcile “the high-handed dismissals of biographers and literary critics” (Soderholm, 69).  After providing some background history on Caroline Lamb, I will try to balance these discrepancies regarding her work and her relationships, and paint her in a more impartial light that shows her to be a strong, caring, and empowered woman.

Lady Caroline Lamb was born on November 13th, 1785 and was “the fourth child and only daughter of Frederick [...] and Henrietta Frances Ponsonby,” both of whom came from prominent noble families themselves (Franklin).  Having suffered violent mood swings from a young age, it was advised by her family doctor that she should not receive a formal education, and she was therefore largely self-taught (Franklin).  She did, however, have two different governesses during her childhood, and first started writing juvenile poetry around the age of nine, some of which was poking fun at these governesses (Brown et al.).  Her childhood is generally described as chaotic due to her having been juggled between guardians, and she herself as “interrupting, asking questions, jumping about, and throwing tantrums” (Brown et al.).  Despite these circumstances, Caroline Lamb was able to develop a unique style of writing that captures the electric workings of her unbridled temperament, which, to some degree, both propelled and hindered her career.

Before officially beginning her published writing career in 1816, Caroline Lamb was wed to William Lamb, the Viscount Melbourne in 1805, and the two primarily lived together with William’s family in London at Melbourne House (Franklin).  Records indicate that their marriage was “tempestuous” and volatile, with the liability often being directed at Caroline Lamb due to her various alleged infidelities (Franklin).  William Lamb’s family tried for many years to instigate a separation between the two, but the couple would always reconcile after every estrangement (Brown et al.).  Caroline Lamb’s own words to Lady Morgan offer contradictory statements regarding their marriage, in one letter referring to William Lamb as “a guardian angel” and claiming that she “adored him,” and in another stating that “his violence is as bad as my own” (Morgan, Vol. 2 176, 200, & 212).  Additionally, William Lamb was often absent from their home due to his career, and this alienation may have influenced Caroline Lamb’s habit of drinking and taking laudanum (Brown et al.).  Throughout their marriage, Caroline Lamb suffered several miscarriages in addition to two children that did not survive infancy, although she did successfully deliver a son named Augustus in 1807 who was later diagnosed with a developmental disability and epilepsy (Brown et al.).  While it would have been socially acceptable to have had him raised by a caretaker, she brought up the boy at home herself and mentions him in a letter to Lady Sydney, saying “my boy, though afflicted, is clever, amiable, and cheerful” (Morgan, Vol. 2 179).  Despite the common depictions of Caroline Lamb as being selfish or aloof, these intimate letters portray her as having very much so loved and appreciated her family.

Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips, taken from Wikiquote.org

That said, it would be inconsistent to ignore the accounts of her alleged indiscretions completely.  As mentioned earlier, the poet Lord Byron played a significant role in the life of Caroline Lamb, and according to sources, she had fallen for the poet after reading his 1812 narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Brown et al.).  When the two eventually met in that same year, the attraction between them is said to have been clearly mutual (Brown et al).  In a letter directly from Lord Byron to Caroline Lamb, he appears to echo this sentiment, assuring her that, “if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are, and must ever be towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer” (Morgan Vol. 2, 204).  To decide whether his words are genuine or not would be pure speculation, but it is important to note the position of power and influence that he would have held over Caroline Lamb as well.  When looking back on their original meeting in a letter to Lady Morgan, however, she claims that “from that moment, for more than nine months, [Lord Byron] almost lived at Melbourne House” (Morgan Vol. 2, 201).  When their affair came to an end, Caroline Lamb claimed that, “it destroyed me: I lost my brain,” and much of her writing career does reflect a fixation on this singular event in her lifetime (Morgan Vol. 2, 201).

Her first published work was an 1816 Gothic romance novel entitled Glenarvon, and the prominent characters and emotional dynamic are said to be modelled after Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron, and William Lamb (Brown et al.).  After having been in early talks with the publisher John Murray (who declined to publish the novel on the basis that “too many powerful people might be too deeply offended by it”), it was eventually published by Henry Colburn, the recipient of Caroline Lamb’s letter from the William Upcott collection (Brown et al).  The novel itself was a sensation, justifying three further editions to be printed, although the scandal that it caused was significant enough for her to include an explanatory preface and revisions in the second edition.  In this preface, she admits that the novel was “written under the pressure of affliction,” but challenges the accusations of the alleged character resemblances that had “been recognized, admitted, claimed with so much eagerness, and then condemned with so much asperity” (Lamb, i-iii).  She ends her preface with this brilliantly unapologetic message to her critics:

If any sentiment throughout these volumes, appears even to approach to the toleration of vice and immorality, it is vain now to say, how from the heart it is wished unwritten; but in censures, which spring from very different motives, in misconstructions, misrepresentations, and, above all, in the charge of malevolence, the author never will silently and tamely acquiesce. (Lamb, x)

The vices and immoralities that Caroline Lamb does apologize for are not truly the issue though.  Instead, it is the fact that she challenged the preconceived notions of gender roles at the time that upset the masculine status quo.  To flaunt her infidelities so publicly (whether intentionally or not) would have been decidedly unladylike for someone in her position.

Following the publication of Glenarvon, Caroline Lamb additionally published two poems (1819’s A New Canto and 1821’s Gordon, A Tale, A Poetical Review of Don Juan) in direct response to Lord Byron’s poem Don Juan.  In Paul Douglass’ 2004 work, Lady Caroline Lamb: A Biography, he notes that her alleged obsession with Lord Byron was a common point of criticism, stating that “the psychiatry of the time called it 'erotomania'—dementia caused by obsession for a man” (Douglass).  In a separate article for The European Romantic Review, Douglass additionally references a troubling 1981 article in The Byron Journal by Malcolm Kelsall that suggests her “‘diseased sexuality’ ... produced both her writings and her reputation, ensuring ‘her position as the madwoman in the footnotes,’” showing that this mentality continued to pervade well into the late 20th century (Douglass, 1).  On the other hand, more relevant insights into Glenarvon have praised it as being “the first critique of Byronism and the Byronic hero by a woman writer” (Franklin).

The scandals surrounding Caroline Lamb’s life had a negative effect on her social status and may have strained her friendships with other eminent women of the period (Brown et al.).  At one point, she exchanged letters with Amelia Opie and was a regular at Elizabeth Benger’s bluestocking gatherings, although her friendship with Lady Sydney Morgan appears to have been the most endearing (Brown et al.).  The two exchanged a multitude of letters with one another until Caroline Lamb’s death, with subjects ranging from Lamb’s childhood, marriage, and affairs, to Lady Morgan’s research for her 1823 project The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa.  As mentioned earlier, many of the details of Caroline Lamb’s life that have become available to us are thanks to these letters and the personal anecdotes of Lady Morgan.

Caroline Lamb’s later published work was primarily limited to only two additional novels, 1822’s Graham Hamilton and 1823’s Ada Reis.  While Ada Reis received mixed reviews upon publication, Paul Douglass calls it “a work of scholarship as well as of imagination” in his biography (Douglass, 245-246).  Unfortunately, it was to be the final published work of her short career, and following the realization of a long-threatened separation from William Lamb, she fell into ill health, living by herself “in a house rented by her husband ... in Mayfair” (Brown et al).  In January of 1828, she died at the age of 42 of suspected kidney failure, which some speculate resulted from her excessive drinking (Franklin).  Towards the end of her days, she lamented her life choices in a letter to Lady Morgan, claiming that, “my life has not been the best possible. The slave of impulse, I have rushed forward to my own destruction” (Morgan, Vol. 2 204).

In conclusion, it is difficult to examine Lady Caroline’s life without some partiality, although we can examine it as well with sympathy.  While some of her actions may have been questionable, her refusal to conform to the patriarchal expectations of a noblewoman are inspiring.  That said, her tendency towards the melodramatic almost certainly impacted the potential of her writing career.  Even in Lady Morgan’s Memoirs, we see Morgan criticising her tragic friend following her death, stating that, "she was eloquent, most eloquent, full of ideas, and of graceful gracious expression; but her subject was always herself" (Morgan, Vol. 2 254).  Perhaps it is Lady Caroline Lamb herself though who leaves us with the most endearing description of an unforgiving and empowered nineteenth century woman: “I am not vain, believe me, nor selfish, nor in love with my authorship; but I am independent ... and I fear nobody except the devil” (Morgan, Vol. 2 211).