The son of a London clerk, Charles Lamb was educated at Christ's Hospital (1782-89); there he befriended Coleridge, who published Lamb's verse in his Poems (1796, 1797). Lamb found employment as a clerk in the East India House, where he remained until retirement in 1825. Cheerful amid sorrow, he suffered a brief period mental illness, and from 1796 cared for his sister Mary, who had killed their mother in a fit of insanity. Their Tales from Shakespeare (1807) was a great success, as were Lamb's Essays of Elia, most of which originally in the London Magazine in 1820-22.
TEXT RECORDS:
1796To the Poet Cowper on his Recovery from an Indisposition. Written some time back.
1797A Vision of Repentance.
1811On the Ambiguities arising from Proper Names.
1818On the Poetical Works of George Wither.
1820Oxford at the Vacation.
1822Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
1826Popular Fallacies. ["The Sanity of True Genius."]
PUBLICATIONS:
Poems on various subjects by S. T. Coleridge [4 sonnets]. 1796.
Poems by S. T. Coleridge, second edition, to which are now added poems by Lamb and Charles Lloyd. 1797.
Blank verse by Charles Lloyd and Lamb. 1798.
A tale of Rosamund Gray and old blind Margaret. 1798.
John Woodvil: a tragedy; to which are added fragments of Burton. 1802.
The king and queen of hearts. 1805.
Tales from Shakespear, designed for the use of young persons. 2 vols, 1807.
Adventures of Ulysses. 1808.
Specimens of English dramatic poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare, with notes. 1808.
Mrs Leicester's school: or the history of several young ladies related by themselves. 1809.
Poetry for children. 2 vols, 1809.
Beauty and the beast ... a poetical version of an ancient tale. 1811.
Prince Dorus, or flattery put out of countenance: a poetical version of an ancient tale. 1811.
Mr. H, or beware of a bad name. 1813.
Works. 2 vols, 1818.
Elia: essays which have appeared under that signature in the London Magazine. 1823.
Elia: second series. 1828.
Album verses. 1830.
Satan in search of a wife. 1831.
The last essays of Elia. 1833.
Recollections of Christ's hospital. 1835.
Poems. 1836.
Letters of Charles Lamb, ed. Thomas Noon Talfourd. 2 vols, 1837.
Mary and Charles Lamb: poems, letters and remains, ed. W. C. Hazlitt. 1874.
Works, ed. E. V. Lucas. 5 vols, 1903-05.
The letters of Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas. 3 vols, 1935.
Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. Edwin Marrs. 1975-.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Christ's Hospital
clerk
poet
essayist
dramatist
The Morning Post
The Morning Chronicle
Annual Anthology
The Monthly Magazine
Blackwood's Magazine
Quarterly Review
The Champion
The Examiner
The Reflector
London Magazine
The Athenaeum
Morning Chronicle
The Table Book
Englishman's Magazine
The Gem
Christmas Box
Washington Allston
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Thomas Barnes
Bernard Barton
Rev. Henry Francis Cary
John Clare
Charles Cowden Clarke
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Payne Collier
Joseph Cottle
Allan Cunningham
George Daniel
George Darley
Thomas De Quincey
George Dyer
Sir Charles Abraham Elton
William Godwin
William Hazlitt
Thomas Hood
Leigh Hunt
John Keats
Charles Lloyd
Rev. John Mitford
Mary Russell Mitford
Edward Moxon
Bryan Waller Procter
Edward Quillinan
John Hamilton Reynolds
Henry Crabb Robinson
Samuel Rogers
Horace Smith
Robert Southey
Thomas Noon Talfourd
John Thelwall
Alaric Alexander Watts
William Wordsworth
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed); DLB.
Biographia Dramatica (1812); Poetical Register for 1810-11 (1814); "On Christ's Hospital, and the Character of the Christ's Hospital Boys" Gentleman's Magazine 83 (June 1813) i 540-42, ii 617-22; Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); "Works of Charles Lamb" Blackwood's Magazine 3 (August 1818) 599-610; "Horae Nicotianae" Blackwood's Magazine 5 (April 1819) 47-51; Thomas Noon Talfourd, "Remarks on Lamb" New Monthly Magazine 14 (August 1820) 129-33; "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago" London Magazine 2 (November 1820) 483-90; Henry Nelson Coleridge, "On Charles Lamb's Poetry" Etonian 1 (1822) 344-51; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); William Hazlitt, "Elia — Geoffrey Crayon" in Spirit of the Age (1825); Living Poets of England: Specimens of the Living British Poets (1827); "The Writings of Charles Lamb" Philadelphia Monthly Magazine 2 (September 1828); Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries (1828) [portrait]; The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (16 November 1833) 769-70; "Charles Lamb" New Monthly Magazine 43 (February 1835) 198-206; William Maginn, "Gallery of Literary Characters: Charles Lamb, Esq." Fraser's Magazine 11 (February 1835) 136 [portrait]; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 3 (March 1835) 325-26; Thomas Noon Talfourd, in Letters of Charles Lamb (1837) [portrait]; Thomas De Quincey, "Literary Reminiscences" (1838) in Works (1889-90) 3:34-92; S. C. Hall, in The Book of Gems (1838); Thomas Hood, "Literary Reminiscences" in Hood's Own (1839); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); George Gilfillan, in Gallery of Literary Portraits (1845) [portrait]; Thomas Noon Talfourd, Final Memorials of Charles Lamb (1848); John Mitford, review of Final Memorials, Gentleman's Magazine NS 30 (1848) 451-66; Thomas De Quincey, review of Final Memorials, North British Review (November 1848); "Charles Lamb" Blackwood's Magazine 66 (August 1849) 133-50; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Percy Fitzgerald, Charles Lamb: his Friends, his Haunts, and his Books (1866); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Margaret Oliphant, in Literary History of England (1882); Maclise Gallery (1898); W. C. Hazlitt, The Lambs; Their Lives, their Friends and their Correspondence (1897); E. V. Lucas, Charles Lamb and the Lloyds (1898); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); E. V. Lucas, Life of Charles Lamb (1905; 1921); J. C. Thomson, Bibliography of the Writings of Charles and Mary Lamb (1908); Edmund Blunden, Christ's Hospital, a Retrospect (1923); Edmund Blunden, Charles Lamb and his Contemporaries (1923); R. W. King, "Charles Lamb, Cary, and the London Magazine" Ninteenth Century 94 (1923) 263-69, 520-30; George Edward Wherry, Cambridge and Charles Lamb (1925); Frederick Hard, "Lamb on Spenser" Studies in Philology 28 (1931) 124-38; J. Milton French, "Lamb and Spenser" Studies in Philology 30 (1933) 205-07; Frederick Hard, "Lamb on Spenser Again" Studies in Philology 30 (1933) 533-34; R. Fukuhara, The Life of Lamb (1963); Jack, OHEL (1963); George L. Barnett, The Evolution of Elia (1964); Wallace Nethery, Eliana Americana: Charles Lamb in the United States 1849-1866 (1971); Tim Chilcott, in A Publisher and his Circle: John Taylor 1972); George L. Barnett, Charles Lamb (1976); Winifred F. Courtney, Young Charles Lamb, 1775-1802 (1982); David Cecil, A Portrait of Charles Lamb (1983); Claude A. Prance, Companion to Charles Lamb: a Guide to People and Places (1983); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Lamb" (1990) 423-25; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Charles Lamb:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Charles Lamb:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)
1. | 1827 Charles Lamb: Charles Lamb, "An Autobiographical Sketch" 1827; Works of Charles Lamb, ed. Lucas (1903-05) 1:320-21. |