Mary Lamb - Middle Years

Middle Years

Six months after the murder, Charles removed Mary from Fisher House and brought her to live in a house in the village of Hackney, not far from London. Charles spent his Sundays and holidays with Mary, leaving her in the care of his landlords for the rest of the time. Mary continued to work as a seamstress, and subscribed to the local lending libraries, as she was a voracious reader throughout her life. Charles's poem "Written on Christmas Day, 1797" demonstrated his feelings toward his sister, who he made a lifelong commitment to. On 13 April 1799 John Lamb died. Sarah Lamb had died in 1797, and with John's death, Charles was able to bring Mary back to London to live with him. They both decided that they would remain unmarried and live together for the rest of their lives, in a state described by Charles as "a sort of double singleness".

In 1800, after the death of their housekeeper, Mary had to be confined again for a month. Through the rest of her life, Mary would occasionally spend time in mental facilities when she or Charles felt that her mental derangement was returning. Over time, Mary and Charles rebuilt the very close and loving relationship they had had before their mother's death. In his essay "Mackery End" Charles wrote that "We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive...But where we have differed upon moral points; upon something proper to be done, or let alone; whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking." Her sense of humour was so little developed, as compared with her brother's, that he described a play on words she made at the age of 50 as being her first joke.

In 1801, the Lambs formed a literary and social circle that included minor artists and writers, and occasional visits from Charles's friends Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. At this time, Mary also met two of the best female friends of her life, Sarah Stoddart and Dorothy Wordsworth. Charles began drinking heavily around this time, a problem that followed him until his death. Mary patiently watched over Charles when he was drunk, just as he had always watched over her.

In 1806, William Godwin (Mary Wollstonecraft's widower) and his second wife Mary Jane Godwin (mother of Claire Clairmont), who had become close with the Lambs through their shared literary work of the past few years, asked Mary to write something for their Juvenile Library. This was the beginning of Charles and Mary's collaboration on Tales from Shakespeare. During the writing of the Tales, Mary realized that she could make a living writing these types of works for children. The finished collection of Tales was published in 1807, with a second edition coming out in 1809. Artists who made illustrations for the Tales included William Mulready and the poet William Blake. In 1808 the Lambs developed a closer friendship with an earlier acquaintance, William Hazlitt, who had recently married Mary's friend Sarah Stoddart.

Mary began writing her collection of tales Mrs. Leicester's School in 1808, publishing it at the end of the year, though the original title page stated the date as 1809. According to Charles, the work was mostly Mary's with only a small collaborative effort by him. The book had gone through nine editions by 1825. In 1810 Charles and Mary published another collaboration, Poems for Children. Their writing brought them financial security and vaulted them solidly into the middle class. Mary had difficulties adjusting to middle-class life, as she had to hire and govern servants though she was used to doing household work herself.