Charles Lamb
(1775-1834), Essayist and poetRegency Portraits Catalogue Entry
Sitter in 11 portraits
Lamb was one of the great essayists and critics of the early nineteenth century. A lifelong friend of Coleridge and a familiar figure in Romantic circles, Lamb worked and spent much of his life as a clerk at East India House from 1792 to 1825. His first success was the collection of prose adaptations for children, Tales from Shakespeare (1807), written with his sister Mary. Thanks to an introduction by Benjamin Robert Haydon, he began to contribute to the London Magazine in 1820. Using the pen-name 'Elia', Lamb wrote on various historical and topical subjects with nostalgia, warmth and humorous intelligence and his collected Essays of Elia (1823) was a huge success.
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by Robert Hancock
black, red and brown chalk and pencil, 1798
NPG 449
by William Hazlitt
oil on canvas, 1804
NPG 507
after Henry Meyer
oil on canvas, based on a work of 1826
NPG 1312
by Francis Stephen Cary
oil on canvas, 1834
NPG 1019
published by Hughes & Edmonds
albumen print, published 1876
NPG Ax132900
by Henry Meyer, published by Fisher Son & Co
stipple engraving, published 1 March 1828 (1826)
NPG D13983
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