It was a stormy evening in London, the second of December in 1764. The dark horizon warned that the worst of the weather was yet to come, and the inhabitants of London were prepared for a horrible night. As evening turned to morning, the sky suddenly cleared. The storm had ended when it was supposed to have become more terrible. But the darkness of the storm may have only taken another form, which would not be recognized for years. On 3 December, 1764, Mary Lamb was born. Mary was the third of seven children born to her parents. The first had died in infancy, and three more would meet that sorrowful end; Mary grew up with two siblings. Her older brother was the favorite of her parents, but Mary was partial to her younger brother Charles. He was eleven years her junior, but that did not affect the strength of their relationship.
Mary was raised in a lower apartment at the Inner Temple, which was the center of the legal profession. Her father was employed by Samuel Salt, the Under-Treasurer of the Temple, and her family was allowed to live in his lower level quarters. This served as a crucial circumstance for Mary’s self-education, as she had unlimited access to the library of Samuel Salt. Her formal schooling took place at William Bird’s Academy near the Temple, but she quickly perceived the paucity of the education. Mary spent many years at the Academy, but her education came primarily from reading books in the Temple.
It was during her youth that Mary also began to write. Her writing at this stage consisted of poems, mostly written for her brother Charles. They often corresponded by sending poems to each other. Such were the beginnings of Mary’s literature.
Following her years of school, Mary was trained as a seamstress. She disliked the profession of sewing mantuas, but it quickly became a necessity for her family. Samuel Salt died, and Mary’s parents both became ill shortly thereafter. The family now had no place to live and a diminished income. Mary spent many long days at her sewing to provide for her family, and she was even forced to manage the household when her mother became paralyzed. These duties took a heavy toll on Mary’s mind. Mary Lamb was in her early thirties, and pressed with a hard life. It was during this time that her mental illness manifested itself. Mary was manic-depressive, although the disease had no name in the eighteenth century. Consequently, there was no treatment for the disease either. Mary, like many others, simply had to live with the illness.
In September of 1796, the symptoms were amplified. September was a notoriously bad month for sewing, and Mary was already under a heavy burden in life. She became excited, irritable, and tense. On Thursday, 22 September, Mary snapped. It was lunchtime in the Lamb residence, and something sparked Mary into an outburst. She picked up the carving knife from the kitchen table, and began to chase her young sewing apprentice. The screams of the terrified little girl brought words of chastisement from Mary’s mother. Mary then turned on her paralyzed mother, who was a much easier victim. Mrs. Lamb could not escape. Mary stabbed her mother through the heart.
Matricide is an uncommon crime, and this was an uncommon case. Mary was tried by the law, and the jury unanimously returned their verdict: lunacy. Mary was subsequently admitted to a ‘madhouse,’ as they were bluntly referred to in those days. Insane asylums would be a recurring pattern for the rest of Mary’s life. Her frequent trips to insane asylums served as an influence for a novel written by one of Mary’s friends. Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, was an unfinished novel written by Mary Wollstonecraft, concerning romance in a madhouse. Mary Lamb experienced no romance, but she spent many days in an insane asylum.
A few months after the trial, Mary was discharged from the asylum. She was allowed to live with her younger brother Charles, who became her guardian. Charles Lamb had secured a profession in Law, and he saw that Mary would never have to sew mantuas again. Charles and Mary became very close, and they would indeed spend the rest of their lives taking care of each other. Charles did not have such a severe mental illness as Mary, but he needed her every bit as much as she needed him. They were siblings and they were best friends.
Mary’s life was now dominated by her illness. She resigned herself to the fact that she could never marry, for fear that she might lash out against her husband. She could certainly never have children either, as lunacy was assumed to be hereditary. She avoided situations that would cause her great stress, and she always worried that she might lose her mind at any moment. She coped with her life by sustaining a very close relationship with Charles, and she made many friends.
As she progressed in life and friendships, Mary also began writing more. She was a friend of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. After Wollstonecraft’s death, Godwin started a business of publishing children’s books and employed Charles and Mary to write Tales from Shakespeare. Given the style of most of the tales in the book, it seems that Mary wrote a large portion of the stories. They were rewritten plays of Shakespeare, directed at a younger audience. It was Mary’s crowning literary achievement, and is still in print today.
Mary directed a literary salon for almost a decade, with her brother Charles, which included many prominent people of the day. This network of outside influences helped to keep Mary and Charles from suffocating in their close relationship. It was an outlet for them both, and a strongly intellectual atmosphere. But Mary eventually gave up on the weekly meetings, as her illness began to worsen.
Charles and Mary moved away from London, to gain any advantage they could for Mary’s health. They settled in a more remote community and were drawn even closer in the seclusion. Mary’s life was invigorated when she and Charles began to house and care for a young orphan named Emma. Mary was in her fifties, but Emma brought her some new life. She was still perpetually ill, but she now had another reason to live. She raised Emma to be a good person, and saw her safely married to a good young man. At seeing her go, Mary was healed of some of the depression that was within her. She was released from a constant illness that had burdened her for decades.
Charles and Mary grew older, and Mary was still admitted to asylums from year to year. But she had learned to cope with her illness, and she enjoyed her life more than ever. Then Charles became sick, and Mary went through an episode over the possibility of losing him. They were both confined to beds for some time, each one missing the support of the other. Charles died while Mary was still incoherent, which may have softened the blow for her. She eventually came to terms with his death, but she seemed to have little desire to live any longer.
Mary deteriorated as she passed through her eightieth year. She became deaf and lost any love of life she had left. Alone in the world without her brother, Mary experienced genuine depression that was not due to her illness. She gradually slipped away, and she knew she was to be buried next to her brother. On 20 May, 1847, Mary Lamb died, at the age of 82.
- by Zeb Crider
Works Cited
Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Mad Mary Lamb : Lunacy and Murder in Literary London. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.
Watson, Kathy. The Devil Kissed Her : The Story of Mary Lamb. 1st Jeremy P. Tarcher ed. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004.
