Lamb, Charles, 1775-1834

Author and critic who collaborated with his sister, Mary .

Was originally mounted in Lamb's Mrs. Leicester's School.

English essayist.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English author, essayist and critic. He is best known for his "Essays of Elia" and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, written with his sister Mary.

English writer.

Charles Lamb, English essayist. Lamb's first published literary works were verses included in the second edition of Poems (1797) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, his boyhood friend. He and his sister Mary, with whom he lived throughout most of his life, contributed several works to William Godwin's Juvenile Library, including the perennial favorite Tales from Shakespeare. Lamb is best remembered for the essays he wrote for The London Magazine under the pseudonym "Elia."

English writer, poet and essayist.

English essayist and humorist. For thirty-three years he worked as a clerk in the Accountant's Office of the East India Company in London.

Charles Lamb was an English poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, and literary critic.

English essayist and humorist.

English author.

Charles Lamb was born in London on February 10, 1775, to John and Elizabeth Field Lamb. In October 1787, he began his education at Christ's Hospital where he met his life-long friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Christ's Hospital was intended to prepare boys for a university education followed by taking orders in the Church of England. However, Lamb's stammer caused him to leave school early and find work first as a secretary to the businessman Joseph Paice, then as a clerk at the East India Company where he would remain for thirty-three years. After Lamb left school, he met Ann Simmons, the inspiration for some of his earliest poetry, which was first published in the 1796 edition of Coleridge's Poems .

In September 1796, tragedy struck the Lamb family when Mary, Lamb's elder sister who had a history of mental instability, killed their mother. She was judged temporarily insane and sent to Hoxton Asylum. To prevent her permanent confinement in a mental institution, Charles made the decision to devote his life to his sister's care. While her illness did necessitate occasional periods of confinement, Mary was able to lead a somewhat normal life under the care of her brother, with whom she lived and even helped to write children's literature.

For a time, Lamb took a break from writing to focus on caring for his sister, but he soon took it up again, and in June 1797 contributed fifteen poems to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Poems, Second Edition . Lamb continued to write poetry throughout his life, but he also began to try his hand at theater, novel writing, children's literature, and journalistic writing. He wrote plays, including John Woodvil, a tragedy in Shakespearean blank verse, but he turned increasingly to prose, the earliest example of which is his novel A Tale of Rosamund Gray (1798).

In 1820, Lamb began writing essays under the pseudonym Elia for London Magazine . These essays, for which Lamb is best known, were published as Elia (1823) and The Last Essays of Elia (1833). In 1823, Charles and Mary moved to Colebrooke Row in Islington where they adopted Emma Isola, whom they had met in Cambridge when she was nine. In the following years, Lamb was able to retire from the East India Company, but despite his new freedom, Lamb wrote less in the last decade of his life. He died on December 27, 1834.

Charles Lamb was born to John and Elizabeth (Field) Lamb in London on February 10, 1775. Two of his siblings survived to adulthood, John (1763-1821) and Mary Ann (1764-1847). Charles Lamb studied at Christ's Hospital but left the school at the age of fifteen due to his chronic stammering. He began working as a secretary and later entered the mercantile trade, joining the East India Company as a clerk in the accounting department in 1792. Mental illness ran in the Lamb family, and Charles spent six weeks in an asylum in Hoxton in 1795. In September of 1796, Mary Lamb (who was afflicted with the same disease and spent considerable amounts of time in private asylums during her life) killed her mother in a fit of mania. A jury found her to be insane and she was removed to the Hoxton asylum. Once she was deemed to be recovered, she would only be allowed to return home on the condition that a family member take responsibility for her care. Charles Lamb accepted this responsibility and devoted much of the rest of his life to his sister.

Lamb began his literary career in the late 1790s, contributing several poems to his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Poems, second edition, by S. T. Coleridge, to which are now added poems by Charles Lamb, and Charles Lloyd (1797). During the 1800s, Lamb began writing journalistic pieces, theatre, and children's literature. He authored several children's books with his sister Mary, including Tales from Shakespear (1807) and Mrs Leicester's School (1809). Charles and Mary Lamb also began giving weekly soirées at their home in 1806. Charles Lamb became increasingly well known in the London literary scene in the 1810s and began writing essays for John Scott's London Magazine under the pseudonym Elia (an anagram for a lie ). He retired from the East India Company in 1825 due to declining health and died on December 27, 1834 following a fall at his home.