The Life of Charles Lamb, in Two Volumes: Volume One: 1775-1817; Volume Two: 1818-1834

xv, 550; viii, 550 pp. Two volume set. Top edge gilt. With fifty illustrations. Charles Lamb, (born Feb. 10, 1775, London, Eng.—died Dec. 27, 1834, Edmonton, Middlesex), English essayist and critic, best known for his Essays of Elia (1823–33). Lamb went to school at Christ's Hospital, where he studied until 1789. He was a near contemporary there of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and of Leigh Hunt. In 1792 Lamb found employment as a clerk at East India House (the headquarters of the East India Company), remaining there until retirement in 1825. In 1796 Lamb's sister, Mary, in a fit of madness (which was to prove recurrent) killed their mother. Lamb reacted with courage and loyalty, taking on himself the burden of looking after Mary. Lamb’s first appearances in print were as a poet, with contributions to collections by Coleridge (1796) and by Charles Lloyd (1798). A Tale of Rosamund Gray, a prose romance, appeared in 1798, and in 1802 he published John Woodvil, a poetic tragedy. 'The Old Familiar Faces' (1789) remains his best-known poem, although 'On an Infant Dying As Soon As It Was Born' (1828) is his finest poetic achievement.