Studies in Romanticism

Abstract:

Using Lady Caroline Lamb as a case study, this essay models a book historical approach to the author function and introduces the concept of recuperative materiality—repairing one’s reputation through the circulation of material objects. It resituates Lamb within a broad media context and highlights her diverse creative output in sheet music, literary annuals, illustrations in children’s books, and an account book. These objects and the moral reputations of those who produced and consumed them imbued Lamb with respectability after her notorious affair with Byron, and her career reveals the complex media landscape that created and circulated Romantic-era authorial identity.