By Janet Cameron
It’s hard to imagine that someone guilty of killing her own mother went on to become a famous literary figure. Image by
Janet Cameron all rights reserved.
The life of
Mary Lamb (1764- 1847) was an extraordinary one. This gifted writer and loyal
supporter of her younger brother, poet, essayist and drama critic, Charles Lamb
(1775-1834), was always subject to bouts of insanity, usually accompanied by a
tendency to violence. This madness led to tragic results when she took a
carving knife to her own mother.
At the time
of this terrible incident in September, 1796, Charles Lamb worked at the East
India House in London. It seems he returned to their home just in time to wrest
the knife from her hand before she did further damage, but not in time to save
their infirm mother.
Mary Goes Into the Madhouse
Charles and
Mary Lamb’s father, John, worked for Samuel Salt, a Bencher at the
Inner Temple, and Salt was instrumental in assisting Charles’ entry to Christ’s
Hospital, where Samuel Taylor Coleridge was also being educated. The two young
men formed a lifelong friendship. He and Mary also had contact with Wordsworth,
Southey and Hazlitt.
Shortly after
the tragedy of the carving knife, Lamb wrote to his friend, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge on 17 September, 1796. The letter, published in Romanticism,
edited by Duncan Wu, acknowledges that Coleridge might already know about the
terrible calamities that had befallen the Lamb family, possibly from the “public
papers.” Lamb says:
“I will only
give you the outlines. My poor dear dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has
been the death of our own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the
knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse from whence I fear she
must me moved to an (sic) hospital. God has preserved me my senses. I eat and
drink and sleep and have my judgement, I believe, very sound.”
Bottom of Form
Charles
explains that Mary wounded their father in the attack and he needed care, as
did his aunt, but that he, Charles, was feeling calm and composed. No doubt the
poet found some consolation through his deep, religious beliefs.
A Bad Start In Life
Mary Lamb was
born on 3 December 1764. Her father was servant to a barrister, and her mother,
Elizabeth, the daughter of a housekeeper, had always been in service. In Kathy
Watson’s book, The Devil Kissed Her, Mary is described as
resembling the actress Mrs Siddons, being fairly attractive and with the same
long nose and dark hair.
The main
trauma she appeared to have suffered as a child was the death of her baby
sister. She was around four years old at the time, old enough to have cuddled
and played with the little girl. The grief of her loss remained with her
throughout her life.
There were
further trials when her father John’s sister, Hetty, came to live with the
family according to Watson. Hetty and Elizabeth disliked each other intensely.
Elizabeth was a gentle woman, and always anxious to please. Hetty was the
opposite. She found Elizabeth’s attempts to get along with her tedious and
oppressive, and suspected her sister-in-law of being deceitful.
Watson quotes
Mary: “They [meaning Elizabeth and Hetty] made each
other miserable for a full twenty years of their lives.” This, of
course, must have resulted in a tense and unhappy household.
On the death
of Salt in 1792, the Lambs had to move from the Temple into lodgings in Little
Queen’s Street. The family was poor and had to struggle to survive. This
compelled Elizabeth to work as a seamstress as well as bear and look after
their children, although of the seven children she bore, only three survived.
Charles Lamb: A Loyal Brother
Mary endured
onerous responsibilities, as Elizabeth became infirm and needed constant care
and attention. Perhaps it was little wonder she was prone to awful bouts of
insanity.
The newspaper
report of her trial in The Times, on Saturday, September 24, 1796,
expanded on the gruesome details, reprinted on the website Biographies: Charles
Lamb:
“On Friday
afternoon the Coroner and Jury sat on the body of a Lady, in the neighbourhood
of Holborn, who died in consequence of a wound from her daughter the previous
day. It appeared by the evidence adduced, that while the family were preparing
for dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife laying on the table, and in a
menacing manner pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room. On the
calls of her infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and with
loud shrieks approached her parent.
“The child,
by her cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too late. The
dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless, pierced to the heart, on a
chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over her with the fatal knife and the
old man her father weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from the
effect of a severe blow he received from one of the forks she had been madly
hurling about the room.”
After
Mary murdered their mother, she was officially certified as insane,
and sent to an Islington mental asylum. Charles, meanwhile, moved into
lodgings with his sick father, as close as he could to the asylum.
Fortunately
for Mary, as seen from his letter to Coleridge, Charles was a concerned and
caring brother. It may have helped that he, too, had suffered a fit of
temporary insanity in 1795, causing his confinement in an asylum for
several weeks. On her release, he took her into his care and guardianship.
Their father died in 1799, and so Mary moved into Charles’ lodgings with him.
Charles
devoted himself to her welfare and the two became inseparable, although Mary
was to continue to suffer from regular bouts of illness.
Charles’ Poem: The Old Familiar Faces
This poem,
composed in 1798, was, perhaps, cathartic for Charles Lamb. This young man had
to carry the burden of such terrible memories, while supporting his sick
sister. It should be remembered that at the time of the murder, when Mary was
32 years old, her younger brother was only 21. Here are two stanzas, the first
and the fourth.
“Where are
they gone, the old familiar faces? / I had a mother but she died and left me, /
Died, prematurely in a day of horrors – / All, All are gone, the old familiar
faces.
“I loved a
love once, fairest among women; / Closed are her doors on me, I must not see
her – / All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”
Literary Activities
It might be
expected, after such dreadful trauma, the pair would live quietly and not
attempt any further demanding projects. The opposite was the case. Charles
wrote a poetical drama, John Woodvil, and a prose piece, Rosamund
Gray. He attempted journalism around the turn of the century, and he wrote
articles, criticism, articles and short, witty features for the Morning
Post and for The Londoner.
Next, came a
project the siblings could complete together. William Godwin, (husband of Mary
Wollstonecroft and father of Mary Shelley) commissioned Charles Lamb to
produce simplified versions of Shakespeare’s plays, and so Charles took on the
tragedies and entrusted the comedies to Mary. He called the book, “Tales
from Shakespeare.” Published in 1807, Tales was
a great success.
For Very Young Children and Young Ladies
However, the
book wasn’t just for children. Here is an excerpt from the original preface,
reprinted in the Introduction to the author’s copy:
“It has been
wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children. To the utmost
of their ability, the writers have constantly kept this to mind, but the
subjects of most of them made this a very difficult task. It was no easy matter
to give the histories of men and women in terms familiar to the apprehension of
a very young mind.
“For young
ladies, too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being
generally permitted the use of their fathers’ libraries at a much earlier age
than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart,
before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book…”
The Lambs
continue by entreating boys to assist their sisters and to explain to them what
was hardest for them to understand.
Obviously,
this was a well-meaning and probably effective action, although it says a great
deal about the shortcomings of society at that time – a society that excluded
“young ladies” from pursuits that might be too hard for them!
However,
the Tales are easy to read, and Shakespeare’s
language can sound strange to the ears of those who are not familiar with him.
The Tales are probably helpful to young men too!
Mary went on
to write some successful stories for children, including Mrs.
Leicester’s School in 1809. As ever, the siblings enjoyed
collaborating and Charles contributed three stories of his own.
Emma Isola and the Lambs
A rather
heartwarming addition to this sad story is that of Emma Isola, an orphan, whom
Charles and Mary adopted. In 1827, the three of them moved to Enfield, and
later to Edmonton. Charles’ contemporaries admired him for his gentle
personality and his whimsical humour, which attracted many friends. When he
died in 1834, he had outlived his friend, Coleridge, by six months.
Mary Lamb was
fortunate is having such a man for her brother, a brother who supported her
through terrible times, and who remained close to her and included her in
everything he did. But for their close relationship, it is doubtful Mary’s
legacy would be available to us. The following, touching passage appears at the
end of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Authors’ Preface to the Tales:
“…it is the
writers’ wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them {e,g,young
readers} in older years – enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of
virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all
sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity,
generosity, humanity, for, of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages
are full.”
When Mary
Lamb died in 1847, at age 82, she was buried next to her beloved brother in a
churchyard in Edmonton, Middlesex.
Resources
for this article
Wu, Duncan
(Editor), et al. Romanticism An Anthology. (1994). Blackwell.
Lessing, Doris
(Editor), et al. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. (1988). Cambridge
University Press.
Lamb, Charles,
et al. Tales from Shakespeare. (1953 (orig.
1809)). Collins.
Drabble, Margaret
(Editor). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. (1987). Guild
Pubishing London.
