Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb was born in London in 1775, the son of a lawyer's clerk. At Christ's Hospital school he became a lifelong friend of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A stammer kept him from university, and from 1792 he worked as a clerk at the East India Company for over thirty years. In 1796 his elder sister Mary, in a fit of mental illness, killed their mother. Charles took responsibility for her care, and the two lived together for the rest of his life; she was sometimes hospitalized during further attacks. Together they wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807), retelling twenty of the plays in prose for children, with Mary writing the comedies and Charles the tragedies. Charles also wrote poetry and criticism that helped revive interest in older English drama. His essays for the London Magazine, written under the name Elia and collected as the Essays of Elia, are humorous and personal reflections on London life. He retired in 1825 and died in Edmonton in 1834.

Charles Lamb is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: A Dissenter sympathetic to Unitarianism; his letters show he sought consolation in Christian faith. Source: Wikipedia