Offers the works of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), the late Romantic-era novelist most famous for her affair with Lord Byron. Presenting Lamb's works in a scholarly format, this book situates her literary achievements within the context of her Whig allegiances, her sense of noblesse oblige and her promotion of aristocratic reform.

Offers the works of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), the late Romantic-era novelist most famous for her affair with Lord Byron. Presenting Lamb's works in a scholarly format, this book situates her literary achievements within the context of her Whig allegiances, her sense of noblesse oblige and her promotion of aristocratic reform.

Offers the works of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), the late Romantic-era novelist most famous for her affair with Lord Byron. Presenting Lamb's works in a scholarly format, this book situates her literary achievements within the context of her Whig allegiances, her sense of noblesse oblige and her promotion of aristocratic reform.

The vivid and dramatic life of Lady Caroline Lamb, whose scandalous love affair with Lord Byron overshadowed her own creativity and desire to break free from society's constraints. From the outset, Caroline Lamb had a rebellious nature. From childhood she grew increasingly troublesome, experimenting with sedatives like laudanum, and she had a special governess to control her. She also had a merciless wit and talent for mimicry. She spoke French and German fluently, knew Greek and Latin, and sketched impressive portraits. As the niece of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, she was already well connected, and her courtly skills resulted in her marriage to the Hon. William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) at the age on nineteen. For a few years they enjoyed a happy marriage, despite Lamb's siblings and mother-in-law detesting her and referring to her as "the little beast." In 1812 Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with the poet Lord Byron - he was 24, she 26. Her phrase "mad, bad and dangerous to know" became his lasting epitaph. When he broke things off, Caroline made increasingly public attempts to reunite. Her obsession came to define much of her later life, as well as influencing her own writing - most notably the Gothic novel Glenarvon - and Byron's. Antonia Fraser's vividly compelling biography animates the life of 'a free spirit' who was far more than mad, bad and dangerous to know.

Offers the works of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), the late Romantic-era novelist most famous for her affair with Lord Byron. Presenting Lamb's works in a scholarly format, this book situates her literary achievements within the context of her Whig allegiances, her sense of noblesse oblige and her promotion of aristocratic reform.

The idea of Shakespearean genius and sublimity is usually understood to be a product of the Romantic period, promulgated by poets such as Coleridge and Byron who promoted Shakespeare as the supreme example of literary genius and creative imagination. However, the picture looks very different when viewed from the perspective of the myriad theater directors, actors, poets, political philosophers, gallery owners, and other professionals in the nineteenth century who turned to Shakespeare to advance their own political, artistic, or commercial interests. Often, as in John Kemble’s staging of The Winter’s Tale at Drury Lane or John Boydell’s marketing of paintings in his Shakespeare Gallery, Shakespeare provided a literal platform on which both artists and entrepreneurs could strive to influence cultural tastes and points of view. At other times, Romantic writers found in Shakespeare’s works a set of rhetorical and theatrical tools through which to form their own public personae, both poetic and political. Women writers in particular often adapted Shakespeare to express their own political and social concerns. Taken together, all of these critical and aesthetic responses attest to the remarkable malleability of the Shakespearean corpus in the Romantic period. As the contributors show, Romantic writers of all persuasions”Whig and Tory, male and female, intellectual and commercial”found in Shakespeare a powerful medium through which to claim authority for their particular interests.