The Lambs of London

In the enthralling (literary fiction) historical novel, The Lambs of London, scribed by renowned British novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd, the author hooks his readers on the discovery of a new dramatic script that might have been William Shakespeare's unknown literary treasure. Set in London of the Romantic Period (late eighteenth/early nineteenth century), the novel gives a fictitious account of how Charles and Mary Lamb make acquaintance with a young bookseller who claims to have found Shakespeare's yet unknown work. The enthusiasm and skepticism that follow make this story a captivating read. The author tells you upfront that the situations are purely fictitious. The real historical figures like the Lambs, Thomas de Quincey, and R.B. Sheridan only support the ambience of the literary environment of London at the time of the novel's events. However, the incorporation of these characters provides solid grounds for performing this literary march in which the name of Shakespeare leads the lives of its followers. As the plot unfolds through the forays of William Ireland into Shakespeare's world, readers get a chance to take a close look at London life that is blanketed by ennui and unanimity at large. For the middle-class literary figures and businessmen dealing in books, Shakespeare's name signifies a boom that would shake people out of their dormancy. Whether it is turns out to their good or ruin is the point illustrated so cogently in the book's ending. Peter Ackroyd proves to be skilled at `showing' instead of `telling' about a historical situation. As manifest in The Lambs of London, he shows how history can be created and made credible. However, the title of his novel calls critical thought to questioning of its relevance. William Ireland remains the dominant character in the story and precedes the Lambs in both attention and character development. The book's ending, though, makes it a story of the Lambs for a moment. Armchair Interviews says: Ackroyd's novel is definitely a memorable creation for lovers of literary fiction.

The Lambs of London is the story of Charles and Mary Lamb, authors of Shakespeare for Children, and the great literary hoax that was played upon London in the first few years of the 19th century by William Henry Ireland, son of a book seller. Charles is a clerk at the East India House. He's bored with his job and spends his free time in taverns drinking with his friends. In fact, when we first meet him, he is slightly less than sober. His sister Mary, is a fragile young woman who is emotionally and physically unwell. She idolizes her brother and puts up with Charles's coming home drunk at odd hours. They live with their parents, their overbearing mother and their slightly senile father. They soon become acquainted with Ireland, who at the age of 17 is already a writer. To suit his own fancy, he "discovers" a lost Shakespearean work called "Vortigern" as well as a testament allegedly written by Shakespeare's father. Its pretty obvious that both works are forgeries; the text of the play uses too many 19th-century phrases and it only has four acts. The documents were also found under suspecious cercumstances that Ireland refuses to discuss. But London, caught up in this extraordianry new "find" recognizes the work as real and the play is performed. While the major facts of the book are true, there is a lot that is not and there are a few misleading things as well. The dates are slightly off: in the book, the forgery and Mary's death take place in or before 1804; in real life, the forgery took place in 1796. In real life, also, Mary survived her brother. Shakespeare for Children was written in 1807; and while this book does not cover that time period, it might have been nice for the author to have at least mentioned it in his afterword. Also, before I learned very much about the Lambs, I'd assumed that Charles and Mary were much closer in age than they actually were (in realy life they were born nine years apart, she being the elder). Also (and this is a spoiler), when Mary attacks her mother and kills her, Ackroyd makes no mention of the fact that Charles did everything his power to prevent her from being sent to an asylum, including declaring himself her guardian. Aside from these historical details, which makes the book confusing in some places, this book is an excellent depiction of London in the pre-Victorian period. It's a quick read but well written and extremely fascinating. I also recommend reading Ackroyd's Shakespeare: a Biography.

Never has Georgian London been so rife with sensationalism as it is on Peter Ackroyd's The Lambs of London. When a short poem - the first verse to be discovered in two hundred years and then Vortigern, a lost play, both written by William Shakespeare are discovered, the city's literati are swept up in a flurry of excitement and anticipation. Even the diffident and self-effacing Mary Lamb is intrigued by the unearthing, not the least because feels a romantic attraction to William Ireland, the ambitious young bookseller, who is now in possession of the manuscript. Picture poor Mary Lamb, holed up in her house in Holborn Passage reduced to a spinsterish-like existence, sleepwalking though life with only her nagging, irksome mother and her partly senile father for company. Mary aches to connect with Charles, her brother and longs for him to come home each evening - when he is not wretchedly drunk of course. The egocentric Charles, however, seems more content to drink his life away at the local tavern, happy to pay little or no attention to his father's condition, and making no comment on the elderly man's increasing incapacity. A budding writer and essayist, Charles continues to earn his living, as his mother has insisted, as a bored and jaded clerk at the East India House. Charles, in fact wishes to consider himself as a journalist and novelist, with all his hopes and ambitions directed towards literature. And he's exactly the sort of man the red-haired young William wants to court, hoping these newly revealed tokens of the Bard will enamor him of Charles and the rest of the Lamb family. Are these Shakespearian manuscripts real or zealous forgeries? The experts all agree that the play at least is real. It doesn't matter to Samuel Ireland, William's father. As soon as William had first brought the papers to him, he immediately saw the profit in them. Convinced there will be more Shakespeare papers, he encourages his son to seek them out. The author displays a fine grasp of the particular world, bringing the late-eighteenth century London to life, transporting the reader right into the city's fabric. It's a world of dusty bookshops, overcrowded theatres, and cramped alleyways, it's denizens of literature drenched in drama and passion and the very possibility that these masterpieces are really that of the world's most famous playwright. As the story goes on, Mary unexpectedly unravels, her emotional state bursting without warning, and her evident unease and fits of temper becoming more pronounced; whilst William - whose ambition is matched only by his self-distrust - finds himself caught up in a complex web of betrayal and deception beyond his control. He's a man, who has aspired to success but expected failure, and his eventual comeuppance is a fitting testament to his devilish plan to fool everyone. Blending fact with fiction, Aykroyd has written an irreverent romp, a somewhat bawdy journey through 1790's London, ultimately thrusting

I was drawn to the simple cover on this book and decided upon reading the summary that it sounded interesting. I have no prior knowledge of the Lambs but feel that they provided a frame work for the story of William Ireland rather than being the primary subject of the book. I had hopes of having their characters developed further but that was not to be. The story of William Ireland was very well written and though was not supposed to be completely factual, did leave one with a sense of wonder at just how brilliant a young man he must have been. I was sad to find that in the closing of the book nothing was mentioned of the sucessful career William Ireland went on to have as a writer of Gothic Novels. I have read Gondez the Monk, and Rimualdo or the Castle of Badajos, both very entertaining and complete with amazing poetry and verse. His love of Shakespeare is apparent in these writings as well.

"The Lambs of London" is a nifty little book that blends history and fiction with just a soupcon of mystery to make for a very satisfying read. In the last decade of the 18th century, William Henry Ireland really did produce a number of Shakespeare-related manuscripts (including a letter to the bard from Queen Elizabeth) that experts swore were authentic. I know of no factual connection to Charles and Mary Lamb, but Mary's tragic history (somewhat telescoped here) dovetails nicely with that of Ireland, who, like Chatterton, was but a teenager when he committed his infamous forgeries, the most notorious of which was a "lost play" by Shakespeare entitled "Vortigern," after the Dark-age British King. Other sources give the full title of the play as "Vortigern and Rowena," although this is never mentioned by Ackroyd, and there are other minor discrepancies as well (for instance, Ireland's so-called "patron" and source of the manuscripts is usually given as another young man and not a woman), but Ackroyd is not so much interested in the truth as in the "larger narrative." And a riveting narrative it is! Along the way, we meet such period heavy hitters as Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Thomas de Quincey, and there are fine portraits of lesser-knowns such as Ireland's father, Samuel, an antiquarian who was ruined by the scandal, and Charles Lamb's circle of bibulous friends from the East India House, who stage a play of their own, portraying the "mechanicals" in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." The climax of the novel is a brilliantly realized staging of "Vortigern," which may or may not have been the travesty it was later judged to be. There is more attention to character and plot in "The Lambs of London" than is typical of Ackroyd's novels, thus making this one of his best. I recommend it warmly.