Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit
By Antonia Fraser
Weidenfeld & Nicolson £25
Two things spring to my mind whenever the subject of Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) crops up.
One is her enchanting portrait by Thomas Phillips from 1814, which adorns the cover of Antonia Fraser's new book. In it, Caroline is dressed in the livery of a boy page, her favoured disguise, used to gain a glimpse of the masculine freedoms denied to her as a society woman of the early-19th century.
