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Unit 3: Charles Lamb-Dream Children : A Reverie-A Detailed Study

Company and doubled as a writer in various genres, his tragedy, John Woodvil, being published Notes
in 1802. His farce, Mr H, was performed at Drury Lane in 1807. In the same year, Tales from
Shakespeare (Charles handled the tragedies and Mary the comedies) was published, and became
a best-seller for William Godwin’s “Children’s Library”.
Charles, who had never married because of his family commitments, fell in love with an
actress, Fanny Kelly, of Covent Garden, but she refused him and he remained until his death
a bachelor. His collected essays, under the title, Essays of Elia, were published in 1823 (“Elia”
being the pen-name Lamb used as a contributor to The London Magazine). A further collection
was published ten years later, shortly before Lamb’s death. He died of an infection, erysipelas,
contracted from a cut on his face. His sister, who was ten years his senior, survived him.
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.

3.2 Youth and Schooling

Lamb was the son of Elizabeth Field and John Lamb. Lamb was the youngest child, with ten-
year older sister Mary, an even older brother John, and 4 other siblings who did not survive
their infancy. John Lamb (father), who was a lawyer’s clerk, spent most of his professional life
as the assistant and servant to a barrister by the name of Samuel Salt who lived in the Inner
Temple in London. It was there in the Inner Temple in Crown Office Row, that Charles Lamb
was born and spent his youth. Lamb created a portrait of his father in his “Elia on the Old
Benchers” under the name Lovel. Lamb’s older brother was too much his senior to be a
youthful companion to the boy but his sister Mary, being born ten years before him, was
probably his closest playmate. Lamb was also cared for by his paternal aunt Hetty, who seems
to have had a particular fondness for him. A number of writings by both Charles and Mary
suggest that the conflict between Aunt Hetty and her sister-in-law created a certain degree of
tension in the Lamb household. However, Charles speaks fondly of her and her presence in
the house seems to have brought a great deal of comfort to him.
Some of Lamb’s fondest childhood memories were of time spent with Mrs. Field, his maternal
grandmother, who was for many years a servant to the Plummer family, who owned a large
country house called Blakesware, near Widford, Hertfordshire. After the death of Mrs. Plummer,
Lamb’s grandmother was in sole charge of the large home and, as Mr. Plummer was often
absent, Charles had free rein of the place during his visits. A picture of these visits can be
glimpsed in the Elia essay Blakesmoor in H—shire.
“Why, every plank and panel of that house for me had magic in it. The tapestried [sic]
bed-rooms-tapestry so much better than painting–not adorning merely, but peopling the wainscots–
at which childhood ever and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as quickly)
to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter with those stern bright visages,
staring reciprocally–all Ovid on the walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions.”
Little is known about Charles’s life before the age of seven. We know that Mary taught him
to read at a very early age and he read voraciously. It is believed that he suffered from
smallpox during his early years which forced him into a long period of convalescence. After
this period of recovery Lamb began to take lessons from Mrs. Reynolds, a woman who lived
in the Temple and is believed to have been the former wife of a lawyer. Mrs. Reynolds must
have been a sympathetic schoolmistress because Lamb maintained a relationship with her
throughout his life and she is known to have attended dinner parties held by Mary and
Charles in the 1820s. E.V. Lucas suggests that sometime in 1781 Charles left Mrs. Reynolds and
began to study at the Academy of William Bird.

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