I started following The Ripped Bodice on Twitter back in the prepandemic days and fell in love. When they announced Bea Koch, one of the owners of the bookstore, was coming out with her own book about women in Regency England, I lost no time in buying my own copy.
The full title is “Mad & Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency.” If you’re not familiar with the sexcapades of a certain Lord Byron, one of his more infamous lovers was a woman by name of Lady Caroline Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne. She was already married to someone else when she met Byron, but apparently she and her husband had an open relationship, because everyone knew she was sleeping with Byron.
The two were very on-again-off-again, and when the affair finally ended, Caroline didn’t take it very well. A writer herself, she wrote a novel based largely on her affair with Byron, then a poem in which she described him as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”
Obviously, Koch took the title of this book from Caroline’s famous line about Byron.
Most people who have heard of Lady Caroline Lamb have only heard about that one line she wrote. Most of us haven’t even read the full poem, and although everyone knows she was talking about Byron, the line has been used to damage her reputation more than his. She was labeled as the crazy ex-girlfriend early on and still has a hard time shaking that reputation.
Koch’s book aims to paint a fuller picture of Lady Caroline Lamb, if only briefly. She talks about her love of writing, which started long before she met Byron. She talked about her aunt giving her a pencil as a Christmas gift, along with a note encouraging her to write. I think Koch does a great job of portraying Lady Caroline Lamb as a full person who was so much more than just one of Lord Byron’s lovers.
Koch makes the same attempt to paint each woman she covers in this book as a 3-dimensional human rather than a stereotype. She also uses the story of each woman to paint a picture of Regency England that’s much broader and more complex than the straight, white, Christian world most people associate with that time period. Koch covers the royal women, the royal mistresses, women of color, women who were writing, painting, and working in STEM. Lesbians and Jewesses (some of whom were also writers.)
Despite everything she covers in this book, it’s really short. I’d call it Regency England 101. I’m sure there are whole books out there devoted to each subject covered in this book. The goal of this book is to provide more of a broad overview of the time period, rather than a deep dive into any one aspect or person of the time.
There was a fair amount in this book that I already knew, but there was also a whole lot that was completely new to me. Regardless of your familiarity with Regency England, you’re bound to learn something new from this book.