Lady Caroline Lamb's Graham Hamilton

Taken from HathiTrust.org

By: Scott Postulo

Of Lady Caroline Lamb’s three published novels, her second, Graham Hamilton, is arguably the least recognized in terms of its literary merit.  Aside from it featuring a more experimental structure than that of Lamb’s infamous Glenarvon published five years prior, there are several other factors relating to Graham Hamilton’s publication that might contribute to its relative obscurity.  That said, it does appear to have been received well by contemporary critics, and recent retrospective analysis tends to look at it favourably as well.  In a 2015 article in the European Romantic Review, Lindsey Eckert even argues to “relocate Lady Caroline’s authorial career and Graham Hamilton in particular alongside now-canonical work by Frances Burney as well as Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen” (149).  While this may be a bit of a hyperbolic suggestion, the novel (and Caroline Lamb’s work in general) certainly are deserving of further modern studies like Eckert’s.

For the purposes of this assignment, a digitized copy of the text from the University of California will be used for analysis.  The title page states that it was printed in 1822 for Henry Colburn & Co., Conduit-Street, Hanover-Square, and on page 235, that it was printed by S. and R. Bentley, Dorset-Street.  Sources suggest that the novel was published in June 1822, which implies that this particular copy is from the first edition (Brown et al.).  Furthermore, the website Caro: The Lady Caroline Lamb Website (which is run by Caroline Lamb scholar Paul Douglass) claims that Graham Hamilton “has never been reprinted” (Caro).  Taking these two claims into account, we can therefore deduce that the University of California’s copy of the text is from the first edition.  The second volume does not seem to be present in the University of California’s collection however, so for analysis of the second volume, a digitized scan has been accessed through Gale, which appears to be of the same edition as the University of California’s copy of the first volume, which would be expected if the text was never reprinted.

Structurally, Graham Hamilton is presented as a dialogue between “the title character and the physically repulsive and amoral Mr. M,” as Paul Douglass describes them (Caro).  Douglass additionally claims the character of Graham Hamilton to be “a male version of Lady Calantha [from Glenarvon]” (Caro).  Because it is suggested that Caroline Lamb based her character of Lady Calantha on herself, she may have been experimenting with gender roles and expectations of the time to see if readers would be more sympathetic to a male character of her disposition than they were of Lady Calantha in her previous novel.  Throughout the text, character names followed by colons are used as an indication of who is speaking (usually launching into a long monologue afterwards), similar to that of dialogue in a play.  As the theatre was the favourite diversion of the upper classes in the 1800s, perhaps Caroline Lamb’s integrating aspects of a stage play into her novel was an attempt to reconnect with the aristocrats whose favour she had lost following the scandal of Glenarvon.  Additionally, the novel also contains similarities to a Socratic dialogue, in that it is entirely composed of a conversation between two characters.  To incorporate elements of an Ancient Greek writing form would suggest that Caroline Lamb had been engaged in scholarly study of classical literature, and likewise would suggest an attempt to have her writing taken more seriously.  Eckert notes that Caroline Lamb also sought feedback on the novel from a variety of acquaintances, including Amelia Opie, Ugo Foscolo, and William Godwin, as well as having attended “literary gatherings hosted by Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger and Elizabeth Isabella Spence” (152-153).  Eckert celebrates Caroline Lamb’s interaction with these fellow writers, suggesting that “the feedback that Lady Caroline sought while drafting Graham Hamilton may be one reason why it is her best work” (152).

Despite the evident passion that Caroline Lamb attached to the novel, it was still published anonymously.  The scan of the University of California’s copy has “Lady Caroline Lamb” pencilled in below “Vol. I” on the title page, though it is impossible to say when the pencil marks would have been added.  Eckert notes that it was no longer unusual at the time of Graham Hamilton’s publication for a female author to attach her name to a novel, and that “Lady Caroline’s name and the scandal surrounding [Glenarvon] would have undoubtedly helped the sale of Graham Hamilton” (154).  Therefore, it is suggested that her decision to publish the novel anonymously was because she “feared her second novel would fail critically if it were associated with Glenarvon and her bad reputation” (Eckert 155).  On the following page, there is a publisher’s note dated April 2nd, 1822, stating that the manuscript was given to Mr. Colburn two years prior, and that it was requested that he not name the author nor publish it at that time.  Despite Colburn’s penchant for “devising gimmicks to hype his books,” it appears as though he was respectful of Caroline Lamb’s wishes in this particular case (Sutherland, 63).  However, according to Eckert (though without much elaboration as to why), these “attempts to keep Lady Caroline’s authorial identity a secret [ultimately] failed” (155).  As for the two year delay in publishing, Eckert notes that there exists “multiple letters to Colburn about Graham Hamilton [entreating] him to send additional proofs, demonstrating Lady Caroline’s intimate involvement in the late stages of the book’s production” (152).

The title page of volume one (containing the publishing information) includes an epigraph from Robert Burns’ poem “Farewell to the Banks of Ayr.”  Given the context of the composition of the novel, Caroline Lamb’s decision to include this poem appears to indicate her desire for a fresh start after the humiliation of Glenarvon.  The excerpt from Burns’s poem bids farewell to “The scenes where wretched Fancy roves, / Pursuing past, unhappy loves!” (robertburns.org).  In relation to Caroline Lamb’s life, these lines in particular allude to her attempt to distance herself from the scandalous reputation that she received due to her public affair with Lord Byron.  Eckert phrases this mentality well in her article, stating that “she sought to distance her private life from her novel at all stages of its production” (154).  In volume two, Caroline Lamb features an epigraph from Jonathan Swift’s 1727 poem, “On Censure”.  Once again, the inclusion of this particular excerpt alludes to the scandal that followed Glenarvon, particularly in the lines “Bare innocence is no support, / When you are tried in scandal’s court.” (online-literature.com).  These epigraphs likely communicate the injustice that she felt of having been demonized for “innocently” releasing a work of creative fiction.  Despite the fact that readers were able to connect the similarities between Glenarvon and Caroline Lamb’s life, the fact remains that the novel was an artistic endeavor, and it was unfortunately never given a chance to be appreciated separately from the artist and her life.

According to Eckert, “while Glenarvon was commercially successful, it was critically vilified” (151).  The opposite appears to be the case for Graham Hamilton.  In a contemporary review from The Gentleman’s Magazine, the novel is given an exceptionally positive assessment.  They proclaim that “she has now learned to restrain her exuberant imagination within the bounds of good taste, equally with respect to story as to style,” as well as that “Graham Hamilton appears to us to belong to the class of proper and of good novels” (731).  In another review from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, they state that “with the exception of a few passages, which are too turgid, and are expressed with rather too great an ambiguity, ‘Graham Hamilton’ may with justice be ranked high in the list of modern novels” (442).  The praise offered in these reviews make it curious that the novel never justified a second edition.  Seeing as how the Gentleman’s Magazine review implies that Caroline Lamb’s authorship was common knowledge, this could suggest that the public was either hesitant to purchase the works of a scandalized author, or that simply would have preferred another scandalous roman à clef from her, as opposed to her attempts to establish herself as a respected writer.

However, it is noted in John Sutherland’s 1986 article “Henry Colburn Publisher” that “to ensure good notices, Colburn made himself proprietor of New Monthly Magazine, The Literary Gazette, and the Athenaeum” (62).  One would assume that Colburn would have made sure that Graham Hamilton was well-promoted in his magazines to increase sales, so it is curious that there does not appear to be a record of this having happened.  After looking through a selection of available volumes of New Monthly Magazine from the year 1822, the only apparent mention of the novel is the following advertisement: “A tale, entitled ‘Graham Hamilton,’ is on the eve of publication; which, it is expected, will excite much attention among the fashionable class” (175).  A search into The Literary Gazette likewise offers similar advertisements and a small excerpt from the Gentleman's Magazine review, and the Athenaeum was first published in 1828, making it irrelevant to this case (222, 526).  The reasoning remains unclear as to why Colburn did not offer further support for the novel in these magazines however.

In conclusion, Lady Caroline Lamb’s career is deserving of much more study than merely the publicity surrounding Glenarvon.  As Eckert states, “almost no work has been done on her two other novels,” and this limits the potential for us to reimagine Caroline Lamb in a different light (151).  To reiterate previous evidence, Graham Hamilton is clearly the product of an author who desired to be taken more seriously and even managed to achieve this in the form of critical praise.  Unfortunately, it seems as though her novel just was not circulated widely enough for her to join the ranks of the more prominent women writers of her time.  Until there is more academic work done on her two later novels, and subsequent attempts to promote the merits of them, it will be very difficult to retroactively elevate Caroline Lamb’s position in history to that of a celebrated author, and ultimately separate her from the scandal surrounding Glenarvon.