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
Friends, Associates Mary Matilda Betham
As well as meeting at Llangollen with Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (who later talked with high praise of her),
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons, 1905.
69, 70
MMB acquired a wide acquaintance in London. She became a close friend...
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...
Friends, Associates Jane Welsh Carlyle
Despite her ill health, the couple entertained regularly. Their guests included John Stuart Mill , Henry Taylor , and Leigh Hunt . JWC became especially fond of Hunt and Mill.
Surtees, Virginia. Jane Welsh Carlyle. Michael Russell, 1986.
100-1
While in London she...
Friends, Associates Thomas Carlyle
While in London, TC socialized with John Stuart Mill , Mary and Charles Lamb , Henry Taylor , Sarah Austin and Leigh Hunt .
Health Mary Matilda Betham
MMB had some kind of general breakdown of health whose beginning Ernest Betham dates to about 1818 (though she seems to have been well when her Vignettes: in Verse appeared this year). Robert Southey reported...
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...
Instructor Mary Cowden Clarke
While her brother Alfred had a year at school in France, she was taught Latin and poetical reading by Mary Lamb , whose voice years later remain[ed] on my mind's ear.
Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
22
Literary responses Lucy Aikin
Aikin's aunt Anna Letitia Barbauld sympathised with her trepidation over the reviews.
Clery, Emma. “Ghostly Conversations in the Upper Reading Room: Researching Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis”. The Female Spectator, Vol.
3
, No. 2, 2017, pp. 4-5.
5
Henry Crabb Robinson found the novel pleasing, and reported to the author that his approbation was shared by Charles and Mary Lamb
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...
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...
Occupation Mary Matilda Betham
MMB wrote later that many people thought her a singular, and perhaps imprudent person, because I rhymed, and ventured into the world as an artist; but I belonged to a large family, and dreaded dependence...
Residence Eliza Fenwick
Presumably during the course of this move, the Fenwick family (including the dog) arrived to stay for a week at the home of Charles and Mary Lamb , being apparently homeless.
Burton, Sarah. A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Viking, 2003.
265
Mary Lamb, who...
Textual Features Marianne Chambers
Early in the play the heroine, Miss Beaufort, makes a splendidly flowing and imaginative speech about the endurance necessary to wives; nevertheless she achieves marriage to Fitzaubin, the sceptical and philosophic hero. She also mentions...
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, 1870–1872, 2 vols.
1: v
She mentions two imitations (by Mary Martha Sherwood
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, 1996.
100
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking, 1995.
176-9
. She also wrote some non-fiction on Italian writers (including...

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