[close] Charles Lamb, one of the most engaging personal essayists of all time, began publishing his unforgettable, entertaining Elia essays in the London Magazine in 1820; they were so immediately popular that a book-length collection was published in 1823. Inventing the persona of “Elia” allowed Lamb to be shockingly honest and to gain a playful distance for self-examination. The resulting essays touch upon a wide range of compelling subjects from the deliciously humorous “Dissertation upon Roast Pig” to the poignantly reflective “New Year's Eve.” Yet collectively they also comprise a fascinating personal memoir, veiled under the pseudonymous disguise of Elia. Now back in print with a new foreword by the distinguished personal essayist Phillip Lopate and with useful annotations, Essays of Elia will provide a delicious stylistic treat for all readers.

Reproducing Lamb's original edition for the first time since its publication in 1823, this facsimile begins with “The South-Sea House” and ends with “On the Acting of Munden” from the first series of twenty-eight essays, which range in tone from slyly humorous to compassionately wise; it also includes “By a Friend of the Late Elia,” which Lamb wrote in 1823 and later used as a preface to the 1833 edition. Psychologically and verbally brilliant, teeming with fascinating portraits, lively stories, and a dazzling prose style, Lamb's inspired essays are the work of an unparalleled genius whose profound influence has been acknowledged by essayists as different as E. B. White and Virginia Woolf. [close]