“rather ridicule than censure”: Lady Caroline Lamb, Frances Arabella Rowden, and the Art of Respectability

Extending recent work in feminist book history and critical bibliography, this article offers a reassessment of Lady Caroline Lamb's public reputation after her affair with Lord Byron in 1812 and the publication of her first novel Glenarvon in 1816. Lamb's complex public standing manifests most interestingly in her relationship with the respected author and educator Frances Arabella Rowden. While previous scholars have noted Lamb's brief attendance at Rowden's school, the significance and longevity of their associations remain underexplored. This article presents new research about Lamb's decades‐long connections to Rowden in print and her notable presence at Rowden's girls' school in London, even after the Byron affair. This ongoing relationship with Rowden contradicts common narratives about Lamb's irreparably fallen status. Lamb's case has wider implications for studying celebrity culture and respectability, and it demonstrates how understandings of the gendered nuances of the Romantic‐era public sphere shift significantly when we de‐center canonical (male) figures.