Fatal women of Romanticism

Abstract

Craciun, Adriana, -Fatal Women of Romanticism / Adriana Craciun. p. cm.-(Cambridge Studies in Romanticism; ) Includes bibliographical references and index.      . English literature-Women authors-History and criticism. . Women and literature-Great Britain-History-th century. . English literature-th century-History and criticism. . Femmes fatales in literature. . Romanticism-Great Britain. . Women in literature. . Title. . Series. .   . -dc       hardback Contents List of illustrations page xii Acknowledgments xiii List of abbreviations xvi   The subject of violence: Mary Lamb, femme fatale On  September , the Morning Chronicle gave the following account of the "fatal catastrophe" that blighted the lives of Mary and Charles Lamb: On Friday afternoon the Coroner and a respectable Jury sat on the body of a Lady in the neighbourhood of Holborn, who died in consequence of a wound from her daughter the preceding day. It appeared by the evidence adduced, that while the family were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a case knife laying on the table, and in a menacing manner pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room; on the eager calls of her helpless infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and with loud shrieks approached her parent. The child by her cries quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too late-the dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless, pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over her with the fatal knife, and the venerable old man, her father, weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from the effects of a severe blow he received from one of the forks she had been madly hurling about the room.