Eric G. Wilson’s biography of Charles Lamb is fascinating and heartbreaking to people who care about Lamb.
I’m among them. Lamb was one of the writers who made me realize that I’m more interested in essays than novels. (Montaigne, Thoreau and Baldwin were among the others.)
Lamb’s life was limited by tragedy.
When he was 21, he came home from the office one day and found that his beloved sister, Mary, had stabbed their mother to death. He heard the cry and took the knife out of Mary’s hand. Mary would struggle with her mental health the rest of her life. Charles knew on that day that the rest of his life would be devoted to taking care of her.
Charles Lamb had difficulties with his own health. His earliest letter that survives is to his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lamb reports that he’s spent six weeks in an asylum.
There’s more, much more, in terms of tragedy.
What interests me about Lamb is that his Essays of Elia are written in a warm, humorous voice. It’s a distinctive voice. Wilson says it’s a combination of whim and melancholy, which sounds about right.
Sometimes I think it’s just impossible that such a wonderful voice could have come from such tragedy. Sometimes I think it’s the only place that such a voice could have come from.
• Source: Eric G. Wilson, Dream-Child: A Life of Charles Lamb; Yale University Press, 2022. Wilson’s book is the subject of several notes. The first was “A new biography of Charles Lamb,” Aug. 20, 2022.
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