Mary Lamb - Legacy

Legacy

At the time of her death, few people outside of hers and her brother's immediate circle of friends knew about either her mental problems or the circumstances of her mother's death. Their friend Talfourd soon published a memoir of the Lambs carefully and respectfully giving details of Mary's mental condition, while praising her as a friend and writer. One intention of Talfourd's was to boost the reputation of Charles by showing how much he had done for his beloved sister. He said that Mary was "remarkable for the sweetness of her disposition, the clearness of her understanding, and the gentle wisdom of all her acts and words", and that "To a friend in any difficulty she was the most comfortable of advisers, the wisest of consolers." Hazlitt called her the one thoroughly reasonable woman he had ever met. She was, in fact, a favourite among Charles's literary friends. Nevertheless, periodicals of the time, such as the British Quarterly Review, did not write about her with the same kindness and respect.

Subsequently, Charles and Mary Lamb's story was explored by Dorothy Parker and Ross Evans in their 1949 play The Coast of Illyria. Mary was depicted as the central character in The Lambs of London (2004), a novel by Peter Ackroyd. She is also the subject of a 2004 biographical study by British writer Kathy Watson, The Devil Kissed Her. She appears in the first chapter of Lisa Appignanesi's book on women and mental illness, Mad, Bad, & Sad.