Glenarvon

Glenarvon is Lady Caroline Lamb's first novel.[1] It created a sensation when published in May 9, 1816. Set in the Irish rebellion of 1798, the book satirized the Whig Holland House circle,[2] while casting a skeptical eye on left-wing politicking.[3] Its rakish title character, Lord Glenarvon, is an unflattering depiction of her ex-lover, Lord Byron.[4]

Theme

Glenarvon corrupts the innocent young bride Calantha (Caroline herself) leading to their mutual ruin and death. The picture of her husband, William Lamb (the 2nd Viscount Melbourne from 1828), called Lord Avondale in the book, is more favourable, although he too is held to be partly responsible for Calantha's misfortunes: his biographer remarks that the book's message is that Caroline's troubles are everybody else's fault.[5] The book is full of wildly improbable melodramatic scenes: Calantha's infant brother, the heir to a duchy, is apparently murdered on the orders of their aunt Lady Margaret, to ensure that her son will inherit the estates; yet later we are told that the child is still alive.

Lady Caroline was unprepared for the negative reaction to Glenarvon. The day after it was published, messages of outrage began to arrive. A second edition softened somewhat the book's sensationalism.[6]

Impact

The book was an enormous success with the reading public but ruined Lamb's already questionable reputation.[5] Society's leaders did not greatly mind reading about her love affairs, but they deeply resented the vicious and easily recognisable portraits of themselves in the book, which were its chief "selling point". One of those thus satirised, Lady Jersey, took her revenge by barring Lamb from Almack's, the centre of fashionable life, a sign that she was socially an outcast. A Melbourne biographer remarked that Lamb never found her way back into society again.[5]

Holland House in Kensington, a centre of Whig society where Lamb met Lord Byron, is satirised in the book.[7]

Literary echoes
  • The title character's full name is Clarence de Ruthven. John Polidori used a vampire named Lord Ruthven as a characterization of Lord Byron in his short story "The Vampyre" published in 1819.[8]
  • In the Regency novel Bath Tangle, by Georgette Heyer, the heroine is sent a copy of Glenarvon, which she pronounces both "the most diverting book that ever as written" and "the most absurd farrago of nonsense".[9] After some banter about whether she is herself an innocent Calantha, a partial key to the book is offered, with Lady Morganet taken as a mix of Lady Bessborough and the Duchess of Devonshire.[10]

See also

References
  1. http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16597
  2. Wright, C. J. "Holland House set (act. 1797–1845)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93786. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. R Gleckner ed., Romantic Generation (2001) p. 159-61
  4. Sutherland, John (2008). Curiosities of Literature. London: Random House. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-905211-97-5.
  5. Lord David Cecil (1965). Melbourne. Pan Books Edition. p. 122.
  6. Glenarvon
  7. https://www.thehistoryguide.co.uk/the-holland-house-set/
  8. Barger, Andrew (2011). BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Short Stories 1800–1849. U.S.: Bottletree Books. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-933747-35-4. Archived from the original on 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2013-05-25.
  9. G Heyer, Bath Tangle (London 1974) p. 125
  10. G Heyer, Bath Tangle (London 1974) p. 129
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.