Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 13 November 1785 – 25 January 1828) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist, best known for Glenarvon, a Gothic novel.

[4] Her behaviour reportedly grew increasingly troublesome to her family, and she experimented with sedatives like laudanum and had a special governess to control her.

[citation needed] While many scholars have accepted that (and other melodramatic claims made by Lady Morgan),[6] published works of correspondence about her family members make it extremely unlikely.

The grandmother she shared with her Cavendish cousins, the Dowager Lady Spencer, was zealously dedicated to promoting education and later employed their governess as her own companion.

There is a published letter that Lady Caroline wrote on 31 October 1796 (just before her eleventh birthday) that not only demonstrates her literacy but also shows a merciless wit and talent for mimicry.

In June 1805, at the age of nineteen, Lady Caroline Ponsonby married William Lamb, a rising politician and heir to the 1st Viscount Melbourne.

The couple had become "mutually captivated" during a visit to Brocket Hall in 1802 and for many years the pair enjoyed a happy marriage.

The stress of their son's ill health, combined with William Lamb's consuming career ambitions, drove a wedge between the couple.

[11] Matters came to a head at a ball in honour of the Duke of Wellington when Byron publicly insulted Lady Caroline, who responded by breaking a wine glass and trying to slash her wrists.

[16]Lady Caroline's most famous work is Glenarvon, a Gothic novel that was released in 1816 just weeks after Byron's departure from England.

It featured a thinly disguised pen-picture of herself and her former lover, who was painted as a war hero who turns traitor against Irish nationalism.

Lady Caroline was most concerned with the allusions Byron had made about her; for example, the line "Some play the devil—and then write a novel" from "Don Juan II".

[4][13] In "A New Canto", Lady Caroline wrote—as Byron—"I'm sick of fame; I'm gorged with it; so full I almost could regret the happier hour; When northern oracles proclaimed me dull."

A reviewer of the time opined, in part; "The writer of this lively nonsense has evidently intended it as an imitation of Lord Byron.

"[4][20] Lady Caroline published three additional novels during her lifetime: Graham Hamilton (1822),[21] Ada Reis (1823), and Penruddock (1823).

However, once Lady Caroline had begun her affair with Byron, her mother-in-law began a long and blatant campaign to rid her son of his wife.

By 1827, she was under the care of a full-time physician as her body, which had always been frail, began to shut down and she retained fluids (a condition then known as dropsy, and now known as oedema).

William Lamb was now Chief Secretary for Ireland and made a perilous crossing to be by her side when Lady Caroline died on 25 January 1828.

The 1905 novel The Marriage of William Ashe by Mary Augusta Ward was based on Lady Caroline and her husband.

In 1972, the film Lady Caroline Lamb was released with Sarah Miles in the lead role and Richard Chamberlain as Byron.

In 2003, the BBC broadcast Byron with Jonny Lee Miller in the title role and Camilla Power as Lady Caroline Lamb.