Post by Todd on Apr 20, 2017 8:09:29 GMT -5
The MPC Social Media has been posting examples of the sorts of articles you can expect in the upcoming issue of Curios and Conundrums. They are preserved here for posterity. (Originally posted on 4/17/2017)
~~ The following was written exclusively to share on Facebook as an example of the sorts of articles one might find in Curios and Conundrums, our subscription box for the literarily deranged. Today is your last chance to subscribe and receive this quarter's edition. We thank the Editor for their generosity. ~~
Forerunners of Victorian Madness: Charles Lamb (1775-1834) & Mary Lamb (1764 - 1847)
The Lamb siblings were literary lights of their day. Both were, at different times, considered mad and institutionalized. The Lambs are perhaps best known for their contribution to English letters with Tales from Shakespeare (1807), a prose adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays aimed at young readers.
Charles spent six weeks at the madhouse at Hoxton in 1795, a time he describes in a letter to Coleridge as “spent very agreeably.” Charles continues proudly that he has “got somewhat rational now, and don’t bite anyone.” Just a year later, in September 1796, Mary was briefly confined to Islington after stabbing her and Charles’s mother to death in a fit of rage. The mad were not incarcerated for their crimes until what’s known as the M’Naghten Rules came into effect (see forthcoming issue of Curios and Conundrums), so Mary was released into her brother’s care, and the two lived and worked together until Charles’s death from an infection in 1834. Happily for them, Mary’s homicidal attack did not seem to impinge on their social life or status and their home became a popular salon for the literati of the day; Coleridge, Shelley, William and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth, were frequent attendees.
~~ The following was written exclusively to share on Facebook as an example of the sorts of articles one might find in Curios and Conundrums, our subscription box for the literarily deranged. Today is your last chance to subscribe and receive this quarter's edition. We thank the Editor for their generosity. ~~
Forerunners of Victorian Madness: Charles Lamb (1775-1834) & Mary Lamb (1764 - 1847)
The Lamb siblings were literary lights of their day. Both were, at different times, considered mad and institutionalized. The Lambs are perhaps best known for their contribution to English letters with Tales from Shakespeare (1807), a prose adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays aimed at young readers.
Charles spent six weeks at the madhouse at Hoxton in 1795, a time he describes in a letter to Coleridge as “spent very agreeably.” Charles continues proudly that he has “got somewhat rational now, and don’t bite anyone.” Just a year later, in September 1796, Mary was briefly confined to Islington after stabbing her and Charles’s mother to death in a fit of rage. The mad were not incarcerated for their crimes until what’s known as the M’Naghten Rules came into effect (see forthcoming issue of Curios and Conundrums), so Mary was released into her brother’s care, and the two lived and worked together until Charles’s death from an infection in 1834. Happily for them, Mary’s homicidal attack did not seem to impinge on their social life or status and their home became a popular salon for the literati of the day; Coleridge, Shelley, William and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth, were frequent attendees.
