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Essays of Elia and Last Essays of Elia
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
340 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1823
43 people are currently reading
2222 people want to read
About the author
Charles Lamb
1,986 books189 followersCharles Lamb was an English essayist with Welsh heritage, best known for his "Essays of Elia" and for the children's book "Tales from Shakespeare", which he produced along with his sister,
Mary Lamb
(1764–1847).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
February 11, 2010
My copy was printed in 1898 and was super cheap on ebay. And whenever I read this book I love holding it in my hands and thinking about how old it is and how sweet and funny it can be even now. I tracked this down because of "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" - it's the book that 2 main characters love. And I can totally see why they did. I loved it too.
However, because it is over 100 years old the printing was tiny - like 6 point font tiny. And I hate to admit that there was a fair amount of the vocabulary I found too archaic and didn't understand (...at least I'm hoping that's the reason I didn't understand it).
The essays vary in topic and length and I did enjoy most of them (with a few I skipped). There was one where Lamb talks about how when you have a favorite book and someone else says it's their favorite book too it's very disconcerting, like seeing someone wear your clothes. Which I thought was very astute.
If you're a nutty fan of the "Guernsey.." book like me then you'll probably like Charles Lamb.
However, because it is over 100 years old the printing was tiny - like 6 point font tiny. And I hate to admit that there was a fair amount of the vocabulary I found too archaic and didn't understand (...at least I'm hoping that's the reason I didn't understand it).
The essays vary in topic and length and I did enjoy most of them (with a few I skipped). There was one where Lamb talks about how when you have a favorite book and someone else says it's their favorite book too it's very disconcerting, like seeing someone wear your clothes. Which I thought was very astute.
If you're a nutty fan of the "Guernsey.." book like me then you'll probably like Charles Lamb.
June 2, 2015
Re-reading Lamb’s essays, I bow yet again to the man’s unimprovable genius for words. This is some of the very best English, and these are some of the very best essays, you will ever read. The man’s life, too… If I had my way we’d be calling him “Saint Charles Lamb.”
July 1, 2013
For me the best of all essayists in English, surpassing even Johnson and De Quincey. But to reduce this merely to a book of essays misses, I think, the essential strangeness of the project, one which slyly grapples with fictions and imposture and the nature (or existence) of personal truths while remaining immensely moving, even haunting. A great book, and rather neglected despite its "stature".
June 5, 2014
This is what happens when you read essays written 200 years ago, in which the author has contemporary readers strictly in mind: complete and utter lack of historical context. The strange thing was, I loved his writing style precisely because it is so old-fashioned and, well, archaic. On the flip side, this anachronistic quality dooms some of his essay to obscurity when he spends dozens of pages waxing long about theatre players whom he obviously expects the reader to have prior knowledge of. There are end notes (written circa 1925) to help the reader on their way, but I have an unfortunate aversion to reading end notes so perhaps I am partly to blame for my lack of comprehension at some parts in the reading of these essays. However, a few essays were on universal themes: "Grace Before Meat", "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig", "A Bachelor's Complaint Of the Behaviour Of Married People" in particular. Those made me chuckle.
April 4, 2025
3.5/5. Lamb is known as the greatest essayist of the Victorian Age for a reason! That being said, he assumes the reader has read/memorized ALL the classics, so a lot of references went over my head. Favorite one was "Chapter on Ears."
January 2, 2017
I give up! I appreciate Lamb's skill but I, a somewhat well-educated and moderately intelligent reader, find him too hard to keep up with. It's not only the outdated allusions, with which any such essays will be replete, and it is not only L----'s use of now-archaic conventions and * * * * * that make it so difficult to read. Several times I found myself reading along like a good citizen of the literary highway and Wham! Out of the blue I realize I have no idea where I am or how I got there. Some of that is probably my fault, but some of it, I think, just might be the fault of L.
But B---- H----- has nothing sensible to say to my confundment or perplexification on attempting to read L in his guise of E--------.
Don't get me wrong. It's not all just confusification and haplidolidol. I read "The South Sea House," in which, pointless as it was, Lamb did a fine job of delineating the characters of several persons so carefully I felt I knew them, before he pulled the rug from under me. In "Oxford in the vacation" he had a couple of good sentences, but I don't have the energy to go looking for them to quote them. "Christ's Hospital five and thirty years ago" did something really amazing, until it went off the rails and I didn't know what he was writing about any more. As Elia, Lamb severely disagrees with an essay he had written under his own name about the orphanage in which he grew up. As Lamb he seems to have thought it a rather decent place. As Elia, he found it horrid and abusive, the terrible conditions and hatred of children we expect of that era from having read Dickens. This was masterful and worth the read. Then I pressed on and read "The two races of Men." This, excepting the tedium, was really somewhat funny. He divides humans into two "races:" those who lend and those who borrow. He humorously finds the borrowers to be more expansive and interesting than the lenders. Finally, I wound up reading "New Year's Eve" on New Year's Eve, with no premeditation whatsoever. I was expecting to have a serendipitous time with many witty or insightful observations, but, sadly, no. It was interesting to find that so long ago New Year's was as big a day, with its different ways of being celebrated, as it is today. And I meant to but did not take to heart his practice of reviewing the old year first and then planning for the new. But it was tedious and dull and confusing and I forced myself to the end and then I quit. Whew.....
By all means, read Lamb for historical interest if you like, and I hope you find it more interesting than I did. But life is short and if you have too many books on your list, skip this one for now.
I have too much money invested in sweaters.
But B---- H----- has nothing sensible to say to my confundment or perplexification on attempting to read L in his guise of E--------.
Don't get me wrong. It's not all just confusification and haplidolidol. I read "The South Sea House," in which, pointless as it was, Lamb did a fine job of delineating the characters of several persons so carefully I felt I knew them, before he pulled the rug from under me. In "Oxford in the vacation" he had a couple of good sentences, but I don't have the energy to go looking for them to quote them. "Christ's Hospital five and thirty years ago" did something really amazing, until it went off the rails and I didn't know what he was writing about any more. As Elia, Lamb severely disagrees with an essay he had written under his own name about the orphanage in which he grew up. As Lamb he seems to have thought it a rather decent place. As Elia, he found it horrid and abusive, the terrible conditions and hatred of children we expect of that era from having read Dickens. This was masterful and worth the read. Then I pressed on and read "The two races of Men." This, excepting the tedium, was really somewhat funny. He divides humans into two "races:" those who lend and those who borrow. He humorously finds the borrowers to be more expansive and interesting than the lenders. Finally, I wound up reading "New Year's Eve" on New Year's Eve, with no premeditation whatsoever. I was expecting to have a serendipitous time with many witty or insightful observations, but, sadly, no. It was interesting to find that so long ago New Year's was as big a day, with its different ways of being celebrated, as it is today. And I meant to but did not take to heart his practice of reviewing the old year first and then planning for the new. But it was tedious and dull and confusing and I forced myself to the end and then I quit. Whew.....
By all means, read Lamb for historical interest if you like, and I hope you find it more interesting than I did. But life is short and if you have too many books on your list, skip this one for now.
June 5, 2015
Really enjoyed it. Anne Fadiman put me onto his trail...
May 5, 2020
These essays evoke different reactions based on their topic and especially how Lamb frames the essay itself. I felt that I almost needed a warm up period for this book because it took a couple of pages before I accustomed myself to his language and style of writing. However, once I got going, I truly enjoyed his essays on saying grace before a meal, the two types of races: borrowers and lenders, and the nostalgia of the South Sea House. The essays need to be read slowly and deliberately, as I believe that in this way, you can truly appreciate style and language of the author.
May 13, 2014
This essay collection was stupid because Lamb keeps referring to all these people and events that happened in the 1800s. Didn’t he know that writing about his lifetime would make all his writing outdated and not worth reading anymore? Also he uses big words and quotes in Latin even though he should of known that readers like me, with a modern “education,” would be too lazy and stubborn to look them up. I realize I wouldn’t even have to open a dictionary but could just use the internet, but still, Lamb shouldn’t have expected me to do that. Finally, because I am incapable of understanding that Elia is a fictional character and I don’t know what parody is and I couldn’t recognize satire if it bit me, I hereby declare that Lamb is a boring essayist.
April 12, 2009
Well, I wouldn't normally have picked this book up to read--it's just not the type that usually appeals to me. But I'm endeavoring to broaden my horizons and have challenged myself to read straight across our bookshelf instead of picking and choosing only what jumps out at me. This book was next in line, so I faithfully read it all the way through, but I wasn't too impressed with it. Some parts were drily humorous--just enough to make me keep reading--but aside from being mildly entertaining, it was pretty dry and at times boring.
May 10, 2011
I started out enjoying these essays, but as I continued I began to feel as though this writer wasn't a very compassionate or sympathetic person. Really got turned off and decided not to waste my time continuing to force myself myself to continue.
May 8, 2013
Funny that in depth descriptions of actors and criticisms about theatre hasn't changed in about two-hundred years. Some interesting phrases but very few even entire sentences that aren't kind of "are you done yet?" and the ideas running through aren't exactly compelling.
September 19, 2021
Summary by https://www.gradesaver.com/charles-la...
"Last Essays of Elia, Charles Lamb explores a broad range of topics and works with various non-fiction tropes that often edge into the terrain of fiction. We see him writing obituaries, dream journals, diatribes, and tributes. What unifies Lamb's essays is his lyrical, conversational writing style. Like many fellow Romantics, he often employs purple prose and shows off his sharp wit, but the essays themselves remain accessible and often fun. Elia is the persona Lamb uses when writing essays, so instead of referring to Lamb or "the narrator," these synopses will refer simply to "Elia."
I am glad that a friend suggested reading these essays they are quite humorous and insightful to the human nature.
For example in his essay, Behaviour of Married People, because he was single and his friend married, the things and interests that their friendship use to share and enjoy went away.
Quotes: "The Young woman understands this as clearly as if it were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of making this a ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by speeches and looks that are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,- the lady's choice. It is enough that I know that I am not: I do not want this perpetual reminding."
"I consider how little of a rarity children are--...
"Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book"...
"I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be called upon to love them, where I see no occasion, -to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately, -to love all the pretty dears, because children are so engaging." (I think he is saying that he shouldn't expect to love all his friend's children just because they are his friend's children.)
"Butif the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage, -if you did not come in on the wife's side, -if you did not sneak into the house in her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on, -look about you -your tenure is precarious -before a twelvemonth shall roll over your head, you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards you and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence after the period of his marriage."
Another of the essays I liked and thought very poignant to ponder and look at how his insights apply to our day is 'On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century'.
"We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly."
I look forward to exploring more of his essays.
"Last Essays of Elia, Charles Lamb explores a broad range of topics and works with various non-fiction tropes that often edge into the terrain of fiction. We see him writing obituaries, dream journals, diatribes, and tributes. What unifies Lamb's essays is his lyrical, conversational writing style. Like many fellow Romantics, he often employs purple prose and shows off his sharp wit, but the essays themselves remain accessible and often fun. Elia is the persona Lamb uses when writing essays, so instead of referring to Lamb or "the narrator," these synopses will refer simply to "Elia."
I am glad that a friend suggested reading these essays they are quite humorous and insightful to the human nature.
For example in his essay, Behaviour of Married People, because he was single and his friend married, the things and interests that their friendship use to share and enjoy went away.
Quotes: "The Young woman understands this as clearly as if it were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of making this a ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by speeches and looks that are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man,- the lady's choice. It is enough that I know that I am not: I do not want this perpetual reminding."
"I consider how little of a rarity children are--...
"Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young children:" so says the excellent office in our Prayer-book"...
"I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be called upon to love them, where I see no occasion, -to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately, -to love all the pretty dears, because children are so engaging." (I think he is saying that he shouldn't expect to love all his friend's children just because they are his friend's children.)
"Butif the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage, -if you did not come in on the wife's side, -if you did not sneak into the house in her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on, -look about you -your tenure is precarious -before a twelvemonth shall roll over your head, you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards you and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence after the period of his marriage."
Another of the essays I liked and thought very poignant to ponder and look at how his insights apply to our day is 'On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century'.
"We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly."
I look forward to exploring more of his essays.
October 1, 2017
To read Charles Lamb in Elia persona requires a willingness to buy into the persona wholeheartedly. Elia is intended to be a fusty old man with deliberately old-fashioned language usage, as Trollope sometimes did but to an even greater degree. At this remove, with all of his contemporaneous references and in-jokes needing a good deal of footnoting, this particular affectation of the character is something for the reader to tolerate rather than smile at. The copy of Essays of Elia that I was able to get is a reprint of only a few essays; I also have several of them in the Penguin series, all of which are about food (beginning with the Dissertation on Roast Pig). An essay by Elia is like following a meandering path. One begins with the author's delight in the paintings on teacups, spends 2/3 of the essay reading a cousin's lament that they are now rich enough to afford to collect china but were happier when they had to scrape for their smallest pleasures, and returns to the china itself for just a couple of sentences before the end. What is particularly interesting to a reader of today is Lamb's ability to play at this character and his choice of topics, because Lamb had a particularly tragic life. His mother was murdered by his own sister Mary during a manic phase. He was able to have her released to his custody eventually instead of having her consigned to a madhouse. For the rest of her life, he took care of her, but her malady returned more than once and was an awful thing for both of them to live with. But he didn't just give her a home; he gave her occupation as well, co-authoring the Stories from Shakespeare with her. He could, obviously, not marry. His was a fairly wretched life, objectively, but he chose to be cheerful, to find an outlet in written wit and in reading.
May 29, 2020
I have wanted to read Charles Lamb's essays ever since Dawsey Adams fell in love with him in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Now that I have read some of the Essays of Elia, I laud Dawsey's intellect and perspicacity. I loved Lamb's language but was not astute enough to find his meaning.
Of the essays I read, my favorite expression was Lamb's definition of a scrivener: "one that sucks his sustenance through a quill." Many of the essays seemed to be little more than descriptions, detailed and delightful descriptions, but no point that I could discern. One member of my book club did discern meanings from some of the essays, but I didn't. And our discussion of the Essays of Elia led us to Daumier's caricatures and Shelley's Ozymandias and so broadened our horizons.
To better comprehend the essays, I read with both dictionary and computer at my side. Were I to continue through all the Essays of Elia, I would undoubtedly be better educated in the understanding of his biblical, mythological, and historical references. Alas, I will likely not invest the time.
Of the essays I read, my favorite expression was Lamb's definition of a scrivener: "one that sucks his sustenance through a quill." Many of the essays seemed to be little more than descriptions, detailed and delightful descriptions, but no point that I could discern. One member of my book club did discern meanings from some of the essays, but I didn't. And our discussion of the Essays of Elia led us to Daumier's caricatures and Shelley's Ozymandias and so broadened our horizons.
To better comprehend the essays, I read with both dictionary and computer at my side. Were I to continue through all the Essays of Elia, I would undoubtedly be better educated in the understanding of his biblical, mythological, and historical references. Alas, I will likely not invest the time.
April 24, 2020
Gorgeous, thick language. Deep and lovely. I found myself studying this rather than reading it.
"It moves my spleen to see things in books clothing perched up on shelves like false saints, intruders into the sanctuary of bookshelves. To reach down a well bound volume and hope it is some kind hearted play then opening what seem it's leaves to come bolt upon a withering essay. "
"Books look best a little torn and dog eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves!"
"I saw the skirts of the departing year.
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest."
"Yet more and more he smiles upon
The happy revolution."
"I don't envy the mule his labyrinthine inlets, those indispensable side-intelligencers."
"It moves my spleen to see things in books clothing perched up on shelves like false saints, intruders into the sanctuary of bookshelves. To reach down a well bound volume and hope it is some kind hearted play then opening what seem it's leaves to come bolt upon a withering essay. "
"Books look best a little torn and dog eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves!"
"I saw the skirts of the departing year.
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest."
"Yet more and more he smiles upon
The happy revolution."
"I don't envy the mule his labyrinthine inlets, those indispensable side-intelligencers."
September 10, 2022
I wanted to see what so enchanted Anne Fadiman about Lamb’s essays. Alas, I fell among the contemporary masses whom she laments aren’t taken with him. There were some nice moments here and there, but mostly they were too stylized and specific to feel authentic and engaging. His half inventing a character for himself and others in his life and writing this weird mix of autobiography and fiction without distinguishing felt like watching some sort of schizophrenic dissociation in response to his family trauma play out in the page.
December 4, 2017
I didn't finish reading this book. I couldn't really get into it. I have read other works of this era and I didn't struggle as much. I just found it kind of dry and hard to follow. Maybe I will try again someday but for now I will chalk it up to experience and now I have a general understanding of what this book is like.
April 1, 2020
Couldn’t finish it, sure there was some cleverly wrought sentences here and there, but reading Lamb makes me think it would be better read by his contemporaries or someone steeped in the culture and class of his time. Maybe I’ll try again sometime to appreciate his work.
Read
October 16, 2022Essays of Elia is a collection of essays written by Charles Lamb; it was first published in book form in 1823, with a second volume, Last Essays of Elia, issued in 1833 by the publisher Edward Moxon. The essays in the collection first began appearing in The London Magazine in 1820 and continued to 1825.
July 18, 2019
Genuine and elegant.
Want to read
December 7, 2019Recommended in Slightly Foxed No. 64 Winter 2019
December 21, 2019
Omg, one the best essay collections of all time. I read this and David lazar's essay on new year every January first.
December 4, 2020
Autobiographical Essays of Lamb. He broadly illustrates the Psychological Insights of Children, His own reverie: in Dream Children, and the element of Child labor: in the essay Chimney Sweepers.
February 21, 2021
like Montaigne meets Sir Thomas Browne...need I say more
May 1, 2021
Essays tend to be a bit all over the place. It’s like having several conversations with the author about very different subjects. My favorite essay was Witches, and Other Night Fears.
October 29, 2022
The most lovable figure of the English canon indeed
Want to read
December 31, 2024Mentioned in the beginning of to kill a mockingbird
December 7, 2018
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April 8, 2019
3.5 stars.
When Lamb writes about subjects still of interest to the modern reader (i.e., me), he is as charming and witty as they come. For the most part, though, he is addressing his contemporaries, which makes this something less than a timeless piece of literature. His essays on visiting Oxford and on the roast pig are delightful, and ever so quotable. His essays on the recent developments on the English stage are nearly unreadable. I encourage the reader to pick this up, but don't be too precious about dear old Lamb. If an essay begins to bore you (and certainly, one will), jump to the next.
When Lamb writes about subjects still of interest to the modern reader (i.e., me), he is as charming and witty as they come. For the most part, though, he is addressing his contemporaries, which makes this something less than a timeless piece of literature. His essays on visiting Oxford and on the roast pig are delightful, and ever so quotable. His essays on the recent developments on the English stage are nearly unreadable. I encourage the reader to pick this up, but don't be too precious about dear old Lamb. If an essay begins to bore you (and certainly, one will), jump to the next.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews