SOURCE: Aaron, Jane. “‘Double Singleness’: Gender Role Mergence in the Autobiographical Writings of Charles and Mary Lamb.” In Revealing Lives: Autobiography, Biography, and Gender, edited by Susan Groag Bell and Marilyn Yalom, pp. 29-41. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Aaron considers the influence of Charles and Mary Lamb's familial relationship on the feminine persona and lack of authoritative tone in their joint writings.

In May 1833 an Edmonton schoolmistress noticed that her neighbours, the Waldens, had acquired two new lodgers; as Mr. Walden, formerly an asylum keeper, let lodgings to the mentally ill, “the reputation of insanity,” not surprisingly, attached itself in the schoolmistress's mind to both of the newcomers.¹ In fact, of the two new lodgers, Charles and Mary Lamb, only Mary suffered from attacks of what has subsequently been categorised by their biographers as a manic depressive disorder.² Her brother chose...