Mary Ann Lamb

Mary Ann Lamb

Mary Ann Lamb (born December 3, 1764 in London , † May 20, 1847 ibid) was an English writer and collaborator of her brother Charles Lamb, who also wrote .

As the child of a poorly well-off family, she added to her modest education by studying diligently in the private library of Samuel Salts , a lawyer her father employed. Salt's death in 1792 ran into economic difficulties for the family. The mother became seriously ill with rheumatism and the father gradually began to develop dementia. Mary Lamb looked after both of them and contributed to the family's livelihood through tailoring. On September 22, 1796, in a fit of anger, Mary Lamb attacked a girl who was doing auxiliary work for the family with a knife, killing the intervening mother. The investigative commission set up well-disposed towards the family discovered a case of insanity and Mary Lamb was able to stay with the family.

Gradually the financial situation improved, mainly thanks to the progress made by his brother Charles Lamb , who worked as a secretary in the East India Company . The two stayed together after their father's death in 1799 and began, under the influence of the writer William Godwin, to write books for mainly young audiences together.

1805 was The King and Queen of Hearts ( "The King and the Queen of Hearts" ) and in 1807 her most important joint work Tales from Shakespeare (retellings of Shakespeare's dramas), which is reprinted today. Then there were Mrs. Leicester's School (1809) and Poetry for Children, Entirely Original (1809). Again and again attacks of her nervous ailment interrupted the creative periods. When her brother died in 1834, she became increasingly fragile and finally died in 1847 in someone else's care.

literature

• Adriana Craciun: The subject of violence: Mary Lamb, femme fatale. In: Fatal Women of Romanticism. Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-521-81668-7