Glorias of Books That Live

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18550, 25 August 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

Glorias of Books That Live

By

CHARLES LAMB.

As an essayist-Charles Lamb had no rival with the ' solitary exception of Joseph Addison, but for depth and tenderness of feeling, coupled with richness of fancy, it.is generally conceded that'he far excels his brilliant oredeces-1 Lamb had already secured, a wide j celebrity and popularity' as a poet, J critic, essayist, and miscellaneous writer i when he produced his "Essays of Elia,” j m.Z«-

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Charles Conway

which are considered the finest of his numerous works, and on which his literary fame chiefly rests. In 1818 his scattered contributions of verse and prose to various periodical journals during the past twenty years were collected and published in book form under the title of “The Works of Charles Lamb,” and the great favour with

CHARLES LAMB.

which this collection was received by the general public led to his being commissioned to write a series of essays for the “London Magazine.” The essays appeared regularly in the columns of the “London Magazine” from 1820 to 1825, and the first of them was a description of the old South Sea House, with which Lamb associated the name of “a gay, light-hearted foreigner called Elia,” who had been a fellowclerk there when the writer started on his business career. This nom-de-plume was used by Lamb for his first essay, and he retained it until the end of the series, which were afterwards published in book form.

Thanks to the charming and unusual self-revelation of his- work and the published recollections of his many literarv friends, the personality of Charles Lamb is better known than that of any other British writer with the single exception of Dr Samuel Johnson, and his weaknesses, his oddities, his charm, his humour and his stutter, are all as familiar to his readers as if they had known him personally, while the great tragedy and noble self-sacrifice of his life add a feeling of reverence for a character already loved by them. Lamb was born in London in 1775, and his father was a lawyer’s clerk. After leaving the historic Blue Coat School, where he was educated, he was employed for a year in South Sea House, after which, in 1792, he secured a clerkship in the service of the East India Company, which he retained for the next thirty-three years. He was only twenty-one when all his prospects in life were blighted by a terrible domestic tragedy, for, during an'attack of insanity, his only sister, Mary, stabbe their invalid mother to the heart. Mar was placed in a lunatic asylum, froi. which her brother secured her relean on making himself responsible for he safe keeping, and henceforward his lii was consecrated to her care.

Finding that his income was insu ficient for the support of two, he dt v*oted his ample leisure to literal work, and his earliest effort was a coi rribution of four sonnets to Coleridgu “Poems on Various Subjects,” whic were published in 1796. Mary Lam had frequent recurrences of her met :al trouble, which from time to tirr. necessitated her removal to a mat house, but when she was normal h mentality was far above the averagt and she collaborated with her brothe m several of his literary works, notabi in the popular “Tales from Shak. speare.”

Lamb retired from the East Ind Company on a pension in 1825, and I then removed with his sister into t\ • mntry, which deprived him of t ) >mpany of his literary contemporaric.

and he also missed his daily attendance to East India House, so that he found his life irksome and sank into a state of listlessness which unfitted him for further literary* work. He died some what suddenly in 1834. (Copyrighted.)