Charles Lamb

The English author, critic, and minor poet Charles Lamb (1775-1834) is best known for the essays he wrote under the name Elia. He remains one of the most loved and read of English essayists.

Charles Lamb was born on Feb. 10, 1775, in London. At the age of 7 he entered Christ's Hospital, a free boarding school for sons of poor but genteel parents. After beginning a lifelong friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a fellow student, Lamb left school in 1789. In 1792 he was hired as a clerk in the East India Company and worked there for the next 33 years.

On Sept. 22, 1796, Lamb's sister, Mary, in a moment of anxious rage, stabbed their mother to death. An inquest found Mary temporarily insane and placed her in the custody of Charles. After the death of their father in 1799, Mary came to live with Charles for the rest of his life. This companionship was broken only at intervals when the symptoms of Mary's illness recurred so that she had to enter an asylum. This lifelong guardianship prevented Lamb from ever marrying. He himself had spent 6 weeks in an asylum during the winter of 1795, stuttered badly all his life, and became increasingly dependent on alcohol. It is quite possible that his responsibility to Mary helped him to keep a firmer grip on his own sanity.

Lamb's literary career began in 1796, when Coleridge published four of Lamb's sonnets in his own first volume, Poems on Various Subjects. In 1798 Lamb published his sentimental romance, A Tale of Rosamund Gray, and, together with Charles Lloyd, a friend of Coleridge, brought out a volume entitled Blank Verse. By 1801 Lamb had begun to contribute short articles to London newspapers and to write plays in an effort to relieve the poverty he and Mary endured. In 1802 he published John Woodvil, a blank-verse play which enjoyed no success, and on the night of Dec. 10, 1806, his two-act farce, Mr. H., was greeted by "a hundred hisses" at the Drury Lane Theatre.

In 1807 Charles and Mary together brought out Tales from Shakespeare, a collection of prose adaptations of Shakespeare's plays intended for young readers. The book proved popular with both young and old, and the Lambs followed up this success with others in the same vein. In 1808 Charles published his own version of Homer's Odyssey for children, The Adventures of Ulysses, and in 1809 he collaborated again with Mary on Mrs. Leicester's School, a book of children's stories, and Poetry for Children.

Meanwhile Lamb began a new aspect of his career in 1808 by editing the anthology Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets Who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare. Lamb's brilliant comments on the selections he chose began his reputation as a critic, and the entire volume was largely responsible for the revival of interest in Shakespeare's contemporaries which followed its publication. Lamb furthered his critical career with essays "On the Genius and Character of Hogarth" and "The Tragedies of Shakespeare," published in Leigh Hunt's journal, the Reflector, in 1811. In 1818 he brought out a two-volume collection The Works of Charles Lamb. Ironically, his real literary career was yet to begin.

Though Lamb was still far from famous, these years were among the happiest of his life. At their home in Inner Temple Lane, he and Mary entertained their friends at a number of late Wednesday evening gatherings. The company included many of the famous authors of the romantic period—Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, William Hazlitt, and Hunt. Yet according to Hazlitt, Lamb "always made the best pun and the best remark" of the evening. Also, Lamb's letters to these friends during these years are among the best things he ever wrote. Filled with excellent critical comments, they also reveal much of the wistful humor of Lamb's own personality.

These letters no doubt did much to prepare Lamb for his forthcoming triumph as a familiar essayist. From 1820 through 1825 he contributed a series of essays to the London Magazine which were immensely popular. Though he wrote under the pseudonym Elia, these essays, like his letters, are intimate revelations of Lamb's own thoughts, emotions, and experiences of literature and life. He touches on few disturbing subjects. He prefers instead to look to the past for a sense of calm, stability, and changelessness. Yet beneath the wit, humor, and humanity of such essays as "A Dissertation upon Roast Pig," "Witches and Other Night-Fears," and "Dream Children," one finds a gentle nostalgia and melancholy. This bittersweet tone remains the hallmark of Lamb's style.

In 1823 Charles and Mary met and eventually adopted an orphan girl, Emma Isola. In August the Lambs moved from London for the first time, to Islington and then to Enfield. Charles's health was weakening, and a long illness during the winter of 1824 led him to retire permanently from the East India Company. He now occupied his time with walking trips around Hertfordshire with Emma Isola.

By 1833 the frequency and duration of Mary's attacks had increased so that she needed almost constant care, so the Lambs moved to Edmonton to be near Mary's nurse. Charles ended his literary career the same year with Last Essays of Elia. In July, Emma's marriage to Charles's friend Edward Moxon left him depressed and lonely. One year later the death of Coleridge made that loneliness acute. "I feel how great a part he was of me," wrote Lamb. Five weeks later, on Dec. 27, 1834, Lamb himself was dead.

Further Reading

An excellent biography of Lamb is Edward V. Lucas, The Life of Charles Lamb (2 vols., 1905; 5th ed. rev. 1921). Because Lucas quotes extensively from the recollections of Lamb's friends and from Lamb's own letters, his book gives an unusually detailed picture of its subject, and the detailed table of contents enables the reader to locate any particular episode in Lamb's life quickly. Edmund Blunden, Charles Lamb (1954), is a useful, brief biographical and critical introduction. A good critical study of Lamb's essays is George L. Barnett, Charles Lamb: The Evolution of Elia (1964).

Additional Sources

Blunden, Edmund, Charles Lamb: his life recorded by his contemporaries, Philadelphia: R. West, 1977.

Cecil, David, Lord, A portrait of Charles Lamb, New York: Scribner, 1984, 1983.

Daniel, George, Recollections of Charles Lamb, Philadelphia: R.West, 1977.

Fitzgerald, Percy Hetherington, Charles Lamb: his friends, his haunts, and his books, Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1978.

Lake, Bernard, A general introduction to Charles Lamb, together with a special study of his relation to Robert Burton, the author of the "Anatomy of melancholy", Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1978.

May, J. Lewis (James Lewis), b. 1873., Charles Lamb, a study, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1977.

Morley, F. V. (Frank Vigor), Lamb before Elia, Philadelphia: R.West, 1977.

Williams, Orlo, Charles Lamb, Philadelphia: R. West, 1977. □

Lamb, Charles (1775–1834), was born in London. His father, the Lovel of ‘The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple’ in Essays of Elia, was the clerk to Samuel Salt, a lawyer, whose house in Crown Office Row was Lamb's birthplace and his home during his youth. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, where he formed an enduring admiration for S. T. Coleridge. After a few months at the South Sea House he obtained at 17 an appointment in the East India House, where he remained until his retirement in 1825. For a short time in 1795–6 he was mentally deranged, and the threat of madness became a shadow on his life. In 1796 his sister Mary, in a fit of insanity, killed their mother. Lamb undertook the charge of his sister, who remained liable to periodic breakdowns, and she repaid him with sympathy, and affection. Four sonnets by Lamb appeared in 1796 in a volume of poems by Coleridge. In 1798 appeared Blank Verse by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb, which included the poem ‘The Old Familiar Faces’. In the same year appeared the Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret, a melodramatic, sentimental village tragedy. In 1802 Lamb published John Woodvil (at first called Pride's Cure), a tragedy in the Elizabethan style; and in 1806 his farce Mr H proved a failure at Drury Lane. With his sister he wrote Tales from Shakespear (1807), designed to make Shakespeare's plays familiar to the young; The Adventures of Ulysses (1808); and Mrs Leicester's School (1809), a collection of stories. In 1808 he published Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare. He wrote for Leigh Hunt's Reflector and for the Examiner, and in 1814 contributed to the Quarterly Review an article (much altered by Gifford, the editor) on Wordsworth's The Excursion. A collection of his miscellaneous writings in prose and verse appeared in 1818. From 1820 to 1823 Lamb was a regular contributor to the London Magazine, in which appeared the first series of essays known as Essays of Elia, published in a collected volume in 1823. The second series was published in 1833.

Lamb's literary criticism is scattered and small in volume. He had no interest in critical theory and a poor sense of structure, but his sympathies were wide and his sensitivity acute. His Letters have been edited by E. W. Marrs (3 vols, 1975–8).

Charles Lamb 1775-1834, English essayist, b. London. He went to school at Christ's Hospital, where his lifelong friendship with Coleridge began. Lamb was a clerk at the India House from 1792 to 1825. In 1796 his sister Mary Ann Lamb (1764-1847) in a fit of temporary insanity attacked and wounded their father and stabbed and killed their mother. Lamb had himself declared her guardian to save her from permanent commitment to an asylum, and after 1799 they lived together. Mary was an intelligent and affectionate companion, but the shadow of her madness continued to plague their lives. They collaborated on several books for children, publishing in 1807 their famous Tales from Shakespeare. Lamb wrote four plays, none of which were successful. However, his dramatic essays, Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808), established his reputation as a critic and did much in reviving the popularity of Elizabethan drama. From 1800 on he wrote intermittently for periodicals, the major contribution being the famous Essays of Elia ( London Magazine, 1820-25), which were collected in 1823 and 1833. The essays cover a variety of subjects and maintain throughout an intimate and familiar tone. Lamb's style is peculiarly his own. His close-knit, subtle organization, his self-revealing observations on life, and his humor, fantasy, and pathos combine to make him one of the great masters of the English essay. Lamb was a gifted conversationalist and was friendly with most of the major literary figures of his time.

Bibliography: See his Life, Letters and Writings, ed. by P. Fitzgerald (1895, repr. 1971); E. W. Marrs, Jr., ed., The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb (3 vol., 1975-78); biographies by A. Ainger (1901, repr. 1970), E. V. Lucas (1968), D. Cecil (1984), and B. Cornwall (2003); biography of Mary Anne Lamb by S. T. Hitchcock (2004); studies by E. Blunden (1954; 1933, repr. 1967), J. E. Riehl (1980), and G. Monsman (1984 and 2003).

Lamb, Charles (1775–1834). The mild and gentle character of Lamb is fresh air among the abrasive and arrogant men of letters of the early 19th cent. He was born in London, spent his ‘joyful schooldays’ at Christ's Hospital, and earned his living as a clerk in the East India House. Much of his life was devoted to caring for his sister Mary, who killed their mother in a fit of madness. Lamb himself, with his stammer and desperate punning, ran close to the edge at times. His most successful works were the Tales from Shakespeare (1807) for young readers, and the Essays of Elia (1823, 1833). Less interested in politics than many of his friends, much of his work was frankly nostalgic—‘The Old Familiar Faces’, ‘Dream Children’—and shot through with love of Hertfordshire, where he spent much of his boyhood.

J. A. Cannon

Lamb, Charles (1775–1834), English critic and essayist, whose anthology of dramatists contemporary with Shakespeare, published in 1808, revealed to his contemporaries the little-known beauties of such playwrights as Marlowe, Webster, and Ford. In the Essays of Elia (1823–33) he recalls many happy moments spent in the theatre and in the company of actors. His love for Shakespeare in particular led him to write in collaboration with his sister Mary Tales from Shakespeare (1807), which, though now considered out of date, served as a pleasant and easy introduction to many of the plays for several generations of schoolchildren. Of his own four plays, a farce, Mr H—(1806), was produced, unsuccessfully, at Drury Lane. The others were published but never played.

Lamb, Charles (1775–1834). Lamb was born in London, spent his ‘joyful schooldays’ at Christ's Hospital, and earned his living as a clerk in the East India House. Much of his life was devoted to caring for his sister Mary, who killed their mother in a fit of madness. His most successful works were the Tales from Shakespeare (1807) for young readers, and the Essays of Elia (1823, 1833).

Lamb, Charles (1775–1834) English writer. He is best known for his essays, most famously collected as The Essays of Elia (1820–23; 1833). He is also remembered for his children's books, which include Tales from Shakespeare (1807), on which he collaborated with his sister, Mary (1764–1847).