essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia
and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare
, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb
(1764–1847). Lamb has been referred to by E.V. Lucas, his principal biographer, as the most lovable figure in English literature.
Lamb was honoured by The Latymer School
, a grammar school in Edmonton, a suburb of London where he lived for a time; it has six houses, one of which, "Lamb", is named after Charles.
Lamb was the son of Elizabeth Field and John Lamb.
I have had playmates, I have had companions,In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days—All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print.
Please to blot out gentle hearted, and substitute drunken dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-ey'd, stuttering, or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the Gentleman in question.
Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.
The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.
Nursed amid her [London's] noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?
Gone beforeTo that unknown and silent shore.
For thy sake, Tobacco, IWould do anything but die.
A good-natured woman...which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor.
Any thing awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.