Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb (pen name Elia, 1775-1834), English essayist, famed for his informal, rambling comments on commonplace life with touches of fantastic humor and pathos.

Lamb was born in London and educated at Christ's Hospital. One of his schoolmates was the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. From 1792 until his retirement on pension in 1825, Lamb was a clerk in the accounting department of the East India House, London. In 1796 Lamb's sister Mary Ann Lamb, seized by temporary homicidal mania, killed their invalid mother. To prevent his sister from being committed to an insane asylum, Lamb had himself appointed her guardian and, despite his own nervous temperament, cared for her the rest of his life.

Lamb's literary career included the writing of poetry, plays, and literary criticism. The perennially popular Tales Founded on the Plays of Shakespeare, later entitled Tales from Shakespeare, was written in collaboration with his sister and appeared in 1807. Lamb's reputation as a critic was established by his Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare (1808). His most important literary work, however, consists of the essays he contributed to the London Magazine between 1820 and 1825; they were published in book form as Essays of Elia (1823) and Last Essays of Elia (1833). Lamb, a brilliant conversationalist, was one of a circle of important contemporary writers that included Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Robert Southey, and William Wordsworth. Lamb's literary criticism was often perceptive and original. He had a particular gift for analyzing character and his sensitivity and perceptiveness made him a valuable critic and friend. Some of his best writings were in letters to his friends.