Leigh Wetherall-Dickson and Paul Douglass. The Works of Lady Caroline Lamb. London: Pickering & Chatto (2009). (3 vols., 902 pp.) ISBN 9781851969029.
The only edition of the works of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785–1828). From birth, Lamb was surrounded by adults obsessed with politics and fashion. She was born into the heart of the ultra-cosmopolitan, politically frustrated Whig opposition to the dominant Tory Party. She married William Lamb, later Lord Melbourne and first prime minister to Queen Victoria. Her aunt was Georgiana, fifth Duchess of Devonshire. The Prince Regent was godfather to her only son. Her intellectual endeavors were supported by her husband and various bluestocking and liberal wits, like Lydia White, Edward and Rosina Bulwer Lytton, William Godwin, Lady Morgan, Amelia Opie, Elizabeth Benger and Elizabeth Spence. She is a link between second-generation Romantic and first-generation Victorian writers. This edition presents Lamb’s works in a scholarly format. Graham Hamilton, Ada Reis, and Gordon: A Tale have never before been republished. The volumes include numerous unpublished poems and voluminous notes and commentary situating Lamb’s literary achievements within the wider context of her Whig allegiances, her sense of noblesse oblige and her promotion of aristocratic reform. All texts are newly reset and editorial material includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes and endnotes.