Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb, (1775-1834). British essayist. After his education at Christ’s Hospital, where he became a friend of S. T. Coleridge, Lamb worked as a clerk from 1792 until his retirement in 1825. In 1796 his sister Mary killed—their mother and was declared insane. Apart from occasional periods spent in asylums, she lived with Lamb for the rest of his life and they adopted a daughter in 1823. Lamb worked with his sister on Tales from Shakespeare (1807), a retelling of the stories of Shakespeare’s plays. He is best known for his Essays (1823), written under the pen-name Elia. His other publications included a selection of poetry by contemporaries of Shakespeare that did much to revive interest in Elizabethan literature.
