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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Author:  

Charles Lamb

 

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Charles and Mary Lamb : 

'Our parents had accumulated a large number of books, which we were allowed to browse in as much as we liked.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Essays of Elia

'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'Percy Wall, jailed for defying draft notices in the First World War, was inspired in part by a copy of Queen Mab owned by his father, a Marxist railway worker. But neither father nor son applied ideological tests to literature. In the prison library - with some guidance from a fellow conscientious objector who happened to be an important publishing executive - Percy discovered Emerson, Macaulay, Bacon, Shakespeare and Lamb. It was their style rather than their politics he found liberating: from them "I learned self-expression and acquired or strengthened standards of literature".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Wall      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'[Chaim Lewis] enthusiastically embraced the literature of an alien culture - "the daffodils of Herrick and Wordsworth... the whimsey of Lamb and the stirring rhythmic tales of the Ballads" and, yes, "the wry eloquence of Shylock".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Chaim Lewis      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : unknown

'As one participant recalled, "Many exceptional debates come back to mind on such subjects as Jane Austen, Charles Lamb, Victorian Novelists, George Eliot, Meredith, Pepys and the Navy, Frederick the Great, Wordsworth, Shelley, Napoleon, where the speaking was of high level and the debating power considerable."'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society     Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Tales from Shakespeare

'every day Spike Mays ran to his East Anglia school, where he studied "Robinson Crusoe", "Gulliver's Travels" and "Tales from Shakespeare".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Spike Mays      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Pride's Cure

Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Saturday 4 October 1800: 'A ... rather showery and gusty, morning ... Read a part of Lamb's play.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth      

  

Charles Lamb : [unknown]

'Theodore Watts-Dunton remembers Algernon Swinburne's fondness for reading aloud during his last years at Watts-Dunton's home: "... he would read for the hour together from Dickens, Lamb, Charles Reade and Thackeray."'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Algernon Swinburne      Print: Unknown

  

Charles Lamb : 

'[Davies said] "Before I was twelve I had developed an appreciation of good prose, and the Bible created in me a zest for literature", propelling him directly to Lamb, Hazlitt's Essays and Ruskin's The Crown of Wild Olives. Later... he joined the library committee of the Miners' Institute in Maesteg, made friends with the librarian, and advised him on acquisitions. Thus he could read all the books he wanted: Marx, Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marshall, economic and trade union history, Fabian Essays, Thomas Hardy, Meredith, Kipling and Dickens'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: D.R. Davies      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'Nottinghamshire collier G.A.W. Tomlinson volunteered for repair shifts on weekends, when he could earn time-and-a-half and read on the job. On Sundays, "I sat there on my toolbox, half a mile from the surface, one mile from the nearest church and seemingly hundreds of miles from God, reading the Canterbury Tales, Lamb's Essays, Darwin's Origin of Species, Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, or anything that I could manage to get hold of". That could be hazardous: once, when he should have been minding a set of rail switches, he was so absorbed in Goldsmith's The Deserted Village that he allowed tubs full of coal to crash into empties'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: G.A.W. Tomlinson      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Essays of Elia

'Growing up in Lyndhurst after the First World War, R.L. Wild regularly read aloud to his marginally literate grandmother and his completely illiterate grandfather - and it was his grandparents who selected the books... "I shall never understand how this choice was made. Until I started reading to them they had no more knowledge of English literature than a Malay Aborigine... I suppose it was their very lack of knowledge that made the choice, from "Quo Vadis" at eight, Rider Haggard's "She" at nine. By the time I was twelve they had come to know, intimately, a list of authors ranging from Shakespeare to D.H. Lawrence. All was grist to the mill (including Elinor Glyn). The classics, poetry, essays, belles lettres. We took them all in MY stride. At times we stumbled on gems that guided us to further riches. I well remember the Saturday night they brought home "The Essays of Elia". For months afterwards we used it as our roadmap...".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: R.L. Wild      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Some Essays of Elia

'Spent the day reading Lamb [for Higher School Certificate Eng. Lit]. Have decided that if I read an author each fortnight I might manage to finish (by February) "The Age of Wordsworth"'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : The Best of Lamb

'Spent the day reading Lamb [for Higher School Certificate Eng. Lit]. Have decided that if I read an author each fortnight I might manage to finish (by February) "The Age of Wordsworth"'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : [works]

'In my hours of leisure I read the works of Mr Charles Lamb, Mr Holcroft's memoirs, and the "Life of General Washington".'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter      Print: Book

  

Charles Montalambert : The Monks of the West

'Read, in the Athenaeum, an interesting article on Bishop Colenso's (of Natal), Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the toleration of Polygamy in converts to Christianity. In the evening read the "Monks of the West".'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.]      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Letters

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 24 September 1837: 'Revelled in Lamb's letters. What an exquisite specimen is that man of our noble, wonderful, frail humanity!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : [unknown]

Sir John Hammerton looking back on his early days in Glasgow when he left school and became a correspondence clerk, he said of Cassell's Library "What an Aladdin's cave it proved to me! Addison, Goldsmith, Bacon, Steele, DeQuincey ..., Charles Lamb. Macaulay and many scores of others whom old Professor Morley introduced to me -- what a joy of life I obtained from these, and how greatly they made life worth living!"

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Sir John Hammerton      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : [unknown works]

'Our syllabus was large, covering at least twelve set books: two plays of Shakespeare's, two volumes of Milton and two of Keats; Chaucer, Sheridan, Lamb, Scott's "Old Mortality" and the first book of "The Golden Treasury", with its marvellous pickings of Coleridge, Shelly, Byron and, especially, Wordsworth, which excited me, at that age, more than any other poetry written.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare, with notes

'Read Lambs specimens.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare, with notes

'read Dante - finish Lambs specimens. walk to Mr Olliers. read Zapolya'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Letters of Charles Lamb, With a Sketch of His Life

Elizabeth Barrrett to Lady Margaret Cocks, 19 August 1837: 'Has your Ladyship seen Lamb's letters, in Mr Talfourd's edition? I quite [italics]sighed[end italics] when I finished them. They are exquisite -- & the "gentle-hearted Charles" [quotes Coleridge] shows in them all his gentle heart, together with his very quaint sly brilliant (as [italics]star[end italics]light) fancies.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Specimens of English Dramatic Poets

'Read Lambs Specimens'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : Letters of Charles Lamb, with a sketch of his Life

'All I can say at all likely to give you any pleasure is, that I read poor dear Charles Lamb's Memoirs and Letters with the utmost delight; & not the less so for seeing such continual allusions to one "H.C. Robinson". Do you know such a person? And my dear brother James too, and kind-hearted Martin - these reminiscences were very pleasant to me. But of Lamb himself - what an affectionate disposition - what originality, what true wit, & what a singular, and I must say, melancholy combination of the truest & warmest piety, with the most extraordinary and irreverent profaneness. I cannot understand the union of two such opposites: but I believe there have been many other instances of it. Amongst fools who may take up the work, the oaths and the levity might do harm, & therefore I regret their insertion: but those who knew him, can only regret, & love him [underlined] notwithstanding [ end underlining].'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 'The Triumph of the Whale'

'I send you some verses which I read in the Examiner; I think them very witty, although very abominable'. [What follows is Charle's Lamb's poem, 'The Triumph of the Whale': Io! Paean! Io! sing To the funny people's King. Not a mightier whale than this In the vast Atlantic is; Not a fatter fish than he Flounders round the polar sea. See his blubbers--at his gills What a world of drink he swills, From his trunk, as from a spout, Which next moment he pours out. Such his person--next declare, Muse, who his companions are.-- Every fish of generous kind Scuds aside, or slinks behind; But about his presence keep All the Monsters of the Deep; Mermaids, with their tails and singing His delighted fancy stinging; Crooked Dolphins, they surround him, Dog-like Seals, they fawn around him. Following hard, the progress mark Of the intolerant salt sea shark. For his solace and relief, Flat fish are his courtiers chief. Last and lowest in his train, Ink-fish (libellers of the main) Their black liquor shed in spite: (Such on earth the things _that write_.) In his stomach, some do say, No good thing can ever stay. Had it been the fortune of it To have swallowed that old Prophet, Three days there he'd not have dwell'd, But in one have been expell'd. Hapless mariners are they, Who beguil'd (as seamen say), Deeming him some rock or island, Footing sure, safe spot, and dry land, Anchor in his scaly rind; Soon the difference they find; Sudden plumb, he sinks beneath them; Does to ruthless seas bequeath them. Name or title what has he? Is he Regent of the Sea? From this difficulty free us, Buffon, Banks or sage Linnaeus. With his wondrous attributes Say what appellation suits. By his bulk, and by his size, By his oily qualities, This (or else my eyesight fails), This should be the PRINCE OF WHALES].

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Lewis      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Charles Lamb : Essays of Elia

'Miss Jewsbury lay on the floor and read half through the Essays of Elia and called our drawing room "such an ugly room in which we should always be unhappy".'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Jewsbury      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : unknown

'I think she thought I was French as I was reading the "Matin". But when I picked up Lamb which was obviously an English book, she began throwing out leading questions.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Nicolson      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : unknown

'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined] try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my memory.'

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey      

  

Charles Lamb : 'Written Soon after the Preceding Poem’

Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 12 November 1797: 'I know that our tastes differ much in poetry. & yet I think you must like these lines by Charles Lamb. I believe you know his history — & the dreadful death of his mother'. Southey then quotes several lines beginning: 'Thou shouldst have longer lived, & to the grave...'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'The meeting at Ingleside on May 20th was of a very pleasant character, in that among other reasons it was devoted to the works of Charles Lamb. Papers were read by Miss Goadby and C.E. Stansfield and readings were given by Miss Pollard, Mrs Rawlings, Mrs Ridges and A Rawlings'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Pollard      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'The meeting at Ingleside on May 20th was of a very pleasant character, in that among other reasons it was devoted to the works of Charles Lamb. Papers were read by Miss Goadby and C.E. Stansfield and readings were given by Miss Pollard, Mrs Rawlings, Mrs Ridges and A Rawlings'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'The meeting at Ingleside on May 20th was of a very pleasant character, in that among other reasons it was devoted to the works of Charles Lamb. Papers were read by Miss Goadby and C.E. Stansfield and readings were given by Miss Pollard, Mrs Rawlings, Mrs Ridges and A Rawlings'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'The meeting at Ingleside on May 20th was of a very pleasant character, in that among other reasons it was devoted to the works of Charles Lamb. Papers were read by Miss Goadby and C.E. Stansfield and readings were given by Miss Pollard, Mrs Rawlings, Mrs Ridges and A Rawlings'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : 

'The meeting at Ingleside on May 20th was of a very pleasant character, in that among other reasons it was devoted to the works of Charles Lamb. Papers were read by Miss Goadby and C.E. Stansfield and readings were given by Miss Pollard, Mrs Rawlings, Mrs Ridges and A Rawlings'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Goadby      Print: Book

  

Charles Lamb : [letters]

'Letters & Letter writing were then proceeded with. Mrs Burrow read three letters of William Cowper characteristically interesting & amusing. Mrs C. Elliott read in French two amusing letters one by Madame de Sevigny & one by Victor Hugo. C. I. Evans read two [?] Ladies Battle & K.S. Evans two by R.L. Stevenson F.E. Pollard read letters by G.B. Shaw & J.M. Barrie to Mrs Patrick Campbell on the death of her son killed in action. Geo Burrow read several characteristic epistles of Charles Lamb & Howard R. Smith part of a letter by Lord Chesterfield to his son. The Club were also much interested by seeing a number of Autograph letters from famous folk shown by various members of the Club.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow      Print: Unknown

  

Charles Lamb : [a letter]

'A Meeting held at Grove House May 3rd H. B. Lawson in the chair

Min 1. Minutes of last Read and approved


[...]

[Min] 4 The Subject of the evening "Humour" was then introduced by H. B. Lawson who fascinated us by his thoughtful attempts to define his subject[.] An interesting discussion followed in which the disputants backed their opinions by literary allusion and we were led to wonder if Humour flowed from F E Pollards heart & wit from R H Robsons head.

After Supper the Club settled down to enjoy the following selections chosen to represent English Humour in literature down the Ages[:]

Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Prioress & Wife of Bath read by Howard R. Smith

Shakespeares Henry IV The Men in Buckram read by R. H Robson Fallstaff
[ditto] S. A. Reynolds Poins
[ditto] C. E. Stansfield Prince Hall [sic]
[ditto] Geo Burrow Gadshill
Jane Austin Pride & Prejudice Mr. Collins proposes
[ditto] Mrs Robson
Charles Dickens David Copperfield Mrs Micawber on her husbands career[?] Geo Burrow
Charles Lamb A Letter Alfred Rawlings
Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland The Lobster Quadrill Mary Reynolds
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Uncle Podger hangs a picture F. E. Pollard
Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tales "George" recited by Howard R. Smith'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings      

 

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