Elia, and the Last Essays of Elia

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist with Welsh heritage, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare (1807), which he produced along with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764-1847). Charles and Mary both suffered periods of mental illness, and Charles spent six weeks in a psychiatric hospital during 1795. He was, however, already making his name as a poet. Despite Lamb's bouts of melancholia, both he and his sister enjoyed an active and rich social life. Their London quarters became a kind of weekly salon for many of the most outstanding theatrical and literary figures of the day. On her own, Mary Lamb published an epistolary work, Mrs Leicester's School (1809) which the poet Samuel Coleridge believed would and should be "acknowledged as a rich jewel in the treasury of our permanent English literature." Among their other famous works are: Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808) and Poetry for Children (1809).