At the age of thirty one, Mary Lamb stabbed her mother to death. Amazingly she wasn't imprisoned but was instead released into the care of her younger brother Charles. Brother and sister were inseparable for nearly forty years. They wrote and holidayed together and were famed for their literary salon, frequented by the likes of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Hazlitt and Godwin. But the Lambs' popularity existed in the shadow of Mary's recurring bouts of illness. Centuries before manic depression was to be diagnosed, Mary's collapses took her into an asylum for several months of the year. Kathy Watson's aim has been to find the real Mary Lamb: to reconcile the modest, motherly lady who wrote "Tales from Shakespeare" with the murderess, the 'lunatic' with the admired hostess. Above all Watson memorably examines a fascinating brother-sister relationship. Superbly researched, beautifully told, "The Devil Kissed Her" is a vivid and intimate portrait of one of literature's most tragically romantic figures.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'Mary Lamb lived with demons and nightmares all her life. Yet the stories she left behind have filled children's imaginations. Now it is time for Mary's own dark story to be told. Fortunately, in Kathy Watson she has a master biographer...a wonderful, moving and vivid book.' Amanda Foreman Praise for The Crossing: 'A haunting biography.' Mail on Sunday 'An affectionate,acutely observed life of Webb.' Sunday Times
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Sprache
Verlagsort
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Maße
Höhe: 23.4 cm
Breite: 15.3 cm
ISBN-13
978-0-7475-7109-4 (9780747571094)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
The daughter of a Scottish mother and a Jamaican father, Kathy Watson was brought up in Devon. After graduating from Oxford University, she worked for the BBC and then as a journalist and editor in national women's magazines. Her first book, The Crossing,a biography of Captain Webb, was published in 2000. She is currently a freelance journalist and lives in London with her husband and two small children.
