Lady Caroline Lamb

the long version

"Lady Caroline Lamb is usually portrayed as a spiteful nymphomaniac. In her affair with Byron, she is depicted as an adulteress whose obsession drove him wild and drove her crazy." "Paul Douglass shows how childhood traumas produced the so-called "erotomania" that focused Caroline's obsession on Byron and caused her, like him, to descend into drug abuse and madness. She emerges as a troubled but loving mother who sacrificed to make a happy life for her mentally retarded, epileptic son Augustus. Claiming that her pursuit of Byron was as much literary as libidinous, Douglass illumines her novels and poetry, her literary friendships, and the lifelong support she received from her husband William Lamb (first Prime Minister under Queen Victoria), her cousin the Duke of Devonshire, and her publisher John Murray."--BOOK JACKET.