Dream-Child: A Life of Charles Lamb

An in-depth look into the life of Romantic essayist Charles Lamb and the legacy of his work

"[An] electrifying portrait of Charles Lamb."--New Yorker

A pioneer of urban Romanticism, essayist Charles Lamb (1775-1834) found inspiration in London's markets, theaters, prostitutes, and bookshops. He prized the city's literary scene, too, where he was a star wit. He counted among his admirers Mary Shelley, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His friends valued in his conversation what distinguished his writing style: a highly original blend of irony, whimsy, and melancholy.

Eric G. Wilson captures Lamb's strange charm in this meticulously researched and engagingly written biography. He demonstrates how Lamb's humor helped him cope with a life-defining tragedy: in a fit of madness, his sister Mary murdered their mother. Arranging to care for her himself, Lamb saved her from the gallows. Delightful when sane, Mary became Charles's muse, and she collaborated with him on children's books. In exploring Mary's presence in Charles's darkly comical essays, Wilson also shows how Lamb reverberates in today's experimental literature.

Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 01/04/2022
Pages: 544
Weight: 2lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.60w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9780300230802


Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2022

About the Author
Eric G. Wilson is Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University. He is the author of several books, including Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck and Against Happiness.