This is comfortable ground for Fraser, now 90, an experienced biographer of female historical figures, whose previous works include Mary, Queen of Scots (1969), The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1992) and Marie Antoinette (2001).Ĭaroline Lamb was born in 1785 in the exclusive “exotic world” of Whig nobility, whose colourful scandals were so often the subject of a Gillray print. Her husband, William Lamb, would later become Lord Melbourne, one of Queen’s Victoria’s favourite prime ministers. Caroline counted Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire as her aunt and Lord Byron as her lover. No surprise, then, that Antonia Fraser’s sparkling biography, Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit, is a zig-zagging Shakespearean drama, played out in the highest echelons of fashionable Georgian society. The episode encapsulates the life of this fiery, free-spirited novelist, whose hallmark was the “defiance of conventions”. A note was left for her family: “Forget my existence all of you”. She hid in a chemist’s shop, jumped on a Hackney coach and headed for Portsmouth, selling her rings to fund the trip. A 26-year-old woman, flustered and wide-eyed, sprinted the length of Pall Mall. At midday on August 12 1812, Londoners were greeted with a peculiar spectacle.
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