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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.
“[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.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
544 pages, Hardcover
Published January 4, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 2, 2022
Excellent biography of Charles Lamb, detailed, thoroughly researched, comprehensive. Full and sympathetic exploration of the work as well as the man. Illuminating and insightful. Highly recommended.
May 27, 2022
A wonderful biography of a fascinating man. Meticulously researched and showing a true understanding of Charles Lamb's personality and background. Wilson transports the reader back to the London of the period, with a sense of real authenticity.
March 11, 2022
It is with pleasure that I write my thoughts on Dream Child by E Wilson. I studied the Romantics in Uni but only touched on Charles Lamb, I would recommend any student of literature from that period to add this book to their reading list. It is so well written, the characters come to life under this authors hand, I loved his descriptions of the relationships between Mary and the family also Hazlett, Coleridge, etc. They are brought to vivid life here. My very grateful thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and the Author for the opportunity to read this inspiring, fascinating book.
November 4, 2025
An intricate, supremely well written biography. By intricate I do not mean hard to read; I mean carefully crafted and artfully intertwined with informative historical details of most of the luminary authors and poets from the English romantic period. Literary giants such as Godwin, Lord Byron, Southey, Percy and his wife, Mary Shelley, Leigh Hunt, William and his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Dyer, Manning, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Landor and several others were all friends or acquaintances of Mr. Lamb.
But first: who was Charles Lamb? Lamb was a witty, creative essayist and sometimes poet who lived, mostly in London, from 1775 to 1834. To say his life was tragic doesn't tell even half of the whole story. His supreme burden was the sad fact that his older sister, Mary, in a fit of insanity fatally stabbed their mother. Brother Charles, in order to save her from a dismal existence in some dank asylum, stepped up and vowed he would would care for his sister the rest of his life--which he did plus leaving enough resources to provide for her care should he predecease her, which he also did. His care for Mary through her periodic fits of madness surely cost Charles at least one relationship heading toward nuptials. What English young woman, however love-sick, would marry into a household where the third person in that home suffered recurring bouts of acute madness? (Despite Mary's mental health challenges she did co-author with her brother a children's summary of several Shakespeare plays that remains in print today.)
Author Eric Wilson completed a dizzying amount of arduous research to write this comprehensive volume. Ingeniously he divided the work into 51 chapters, each of which are short and compellingly describe either a new friend of the Lambs or a new literary venture or person blended into the mix. All Lamb's major literary work was completed at night whilst during the day he labored for 33 steady years as a bookkeeper for London's notorious East India Company. Employment brought the measure of financial security which allowed Lamb to provide care for his ailing sister and keep a home for both. He hated his daily grind and rejoiced at his retirement although he continued to struggle with an abiding dipsomania which undoubtedly hastened his own demise.
A brilliant, informative and very accessible biography that you will find addictive to the last chapter.
My only quibble with this author: no where does he decode his frequent use of scholarly notations that locate embedded quotes from Lamb's letters or other documents. Here's one example of the many disparate codes frequently used after a direct quote: (W, 1 432). What was I to make of this? This must be a common way scholars to locate the quotes they include in their work, but I'm frustrated that Wilson doesn't decode this scheme for non-scholars like myself anywhere in the work. A tiny blemish in an otherwise memorable biography.
But first: who was Charles Lamb? Lamb was a witty, creative essayist and sometimes poet who lived, mostly in London, from 1775 to 1834. To say his life was tragic doesn't tell even half of the whole story. His supreme burden was the sad fact that his older sister, Mary, in a fit of insanity fatally stabbed their mother. Brother Charles, in order to save her from a dismal existence in some dank asylum, stepped up and vowed he would would care for his sister the rest of his life--which he did plus leaving enough resources to provide for her care should he predecease her, which he also did. His care for Mary through her periodic fits of madness surely cost Charles at least one relationship heading toward nuptials. What English young woman, however love-sick, would marry into a household where the third person in that home suffered recurring bouts of acute madness? (Despite Mary's mental health challenges she did co-author with her brother a children's summary of several Shakespeare plays that remains in print today.)
Author Eric Wilson completed a dizzying amount of arduous research to write this comprehensive volume. Ingeniously he divided the work into 51 chapters, each of which are short and compellingly describe either a new friend of the Lambs or a new literary venture or person blended into the mix. All Lamb's major literary work was completed at night whilst during the day he labored for 33 steady years as a bookkeeper for London's notorious East India Company. Employment brought the measure of financial security which allowed Lamb to provide care for his ailing sister and keep a home for both. He hated his daily grind and rejoiced at his retirement although he continued to struggle with an abiding dipsomania which undoubtedly hastened his own demise.
A brilliant, informative and very accessible biography that you will find addictive to the last chapter.
My only quibble with this author: no where does he decode his frequent use of scholarly notations that locate embedded quotes from Lamb's letters or other documents. Here's one example of the many disparate codes frequently used after a direct quote: (W, 1 432). What was I to make of this? This must be a common way scholars to locate the quotes they include in their work, but I'm frustrated that Wilson doesn't decode this scheme for non-scholars like myself anywhere in the work. A tiny blemish in an otherwise memorable biography.
October 25, 2022
Full Disclosure: I have known Eric Wilson for many years, but my admiration for this superb book is not a product of slavish idolatry (well, perhaps for Lamb, but not for Eric, as much as I like him personally), but rather a product of long-standing familiarity with his writing and the cast of his mind. When I first heard that he was writing a full-on cradle to grave bio of Lamb, my first reaction was, "Ah, now CL will get the definitive, insightful and entertaining treatment he deserves." And Wilson has delivered on that expectation in spades.
If you have any interest in the genre of the essay or, in current parlance, creative-nonfiction, it's history and evolution, this book is a must-read. If you have any interest in the Romantics, this book is a must-read. If you're a fan of literary biographies, this book is a must-read. Or, finally, if you're just a fan of splendid writing, a rare combination of rigor, even-handedness, and wit, this book is a must-read. Don't expect to plow though it, though. It is not a quick read, but it is a fascinating read. I took my time with it, pausing to note humorous and tragic accounts of Lamb's life and inspiring interpretations of his work. I have been a devoted fan of Lamb's essays for decades, and Wilson's take on my favorite essays had me rushing to my shelves to reread them with new eyes. And had me looking up several I was not aware of. So, in sum, it's not a book taken up lightly, but it is a book that time and again rewards patient, close reading.
Here's a favorite passage concluding a deep analytical dive into the slipperiness of Lamb's Elia persona -- "a fabrication and a fact" -- in many of his essays:
"Blurred Elia, Hamlet-wise, asks: who are you? Without hesitation you recall those circumstances from your pasts that have made you, you: your mom and dad, your town at night, school desks, sex, bars, Yeats, that dream of the boar, and you say, I am the person these things happened to. But you have lived billions of moments. Why focus on these? They support how you want to see yourself during this instance. Ten years earlier you would have grasped other events; seven years later, you will apprehend others. We are novelists perpetually creating and revising the character we call ourselves." (366)
The last line of the book is as heart-breaking as any you will find in a novel.
If you have any interest in the genre of the essay or, in current parlance, creative-nonfiction, it's history and evolution, this book is a must-read. If you have any interest in the Romantics, this book is a must-read. If you're a fan of literary biographies, this book is a must-read. Or, finally, if you're just a fan of splendid writing, a rare combination of rigor, even-handedness, and wit, this book is a must-read. Don't expect to plow though it, though. It is not a quick read, but it is a fascinating read. I took my time with it, pausing to note humorous and tragic accounts of Lamb's life and inspiring interpretations of his work. I have been a devoted fan of Lamb's essays for decades, and Wilson's take on my favorite essays had me rushing to my shelves to reread them with new eyes. And had me looking up several I was not aware of. So, in sum, it's not a book taken up lightly, but it is a book that time and again rewards patient, close reading.
Here's a favorite passage concluding a deep analytical dive into the slipperiness of Lamb's Elia persona -- "a fabrication and a fact" -- in many of his essays:
"Blurred Elia, Hamlet-wise, asks: who are you? Without hesitation you recall those circumstances from your pasts that have made you, you: your mom and dad, your town at night, school desks, sex, bars, Yeats, that dream of the boar, and you say, I am the person these things happened to. But you have lived billions of moments. Why focus on these? They support how you want to see yourself during this instance. Ten years earlier you would have grasped other events; seven years later, you will apprehend others. We are novelists perpetually creating and revising the character we call ourselves." (366)
The last line of the book is as heart-breaking as any you will find in a novel.
April 11, 2024
Charles Lamb (1775-1834) must be one of the most intriguing key figures of the Romantic era.
His contribution to English literature cannot be underestimated: one of the earliest male feminists, he composed children's books, wrote satires about his (boring) life as an accountant and essays in other persona ('Elia' or 'a liar' being the most famous). He was a companion and friend of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, Robert Southey, William Godwin and mathematician Thomas Manning.
Tragedy struck hard and early in his life: prone to depression himself, his sister (possibly suffering from a bipolar disorder) stabbed their mother to death in September 1796. Lamb would devote the rest of his life to the care for his sister, abstaining from a personal life. He tried to escape the tragedies of his life by drinking heavily (he invented the addiction memoir), by walking prodigiously (in his beloved London) and by creating alter egos such as Elia, in which he combined the confessional and the satirical. The king of puns and witty in conversation, he was privately suffering from his own melancholia, and died a horrible death in December 1834, after a flesh-eating infection.
Eric G. Wilson is obviously a great admirer of Lamb. His biography strives for comprehensiveness: the epistolary and magazine scene of the 19th century is evoked, and the radical tendencies of Charles' friends demonstrated. Wilson goes into great detail, exploring each and every essay of Lamb, which often sags the pace of the book. He is also chaotic at times: referencing to characters and future developements that the reader is (yet) unaware of at that moment, hinting back later on at was written 150 pages ago. The biography ends abruptly with his death and fails to mention Lamb's legacy or his current reception in English literature.
Much as I love Charles Lamb, I didn't enjoy this biography about him to the fullest.
His contribution to English literature cannot be underestimated: one of the earliest male feminists, he composed children's books, wrote satires about his (boring) life as an accountant and essays in other persona ('Elia' or 'a liar' being the most famous). He was a companion and friend of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, Robert Southey, William Godwin and mathematician Thomas Manning.
Tragedy struck hard and early in his life: prone to depression himself, his sister (possibly suffering from a bipolar disorder) stabbed their mother to death in September 1796. Lamb would devote the rest of his life to the care for his sister, abstaining from a personal life. He tried to escape the tragedies of his life by drinking heavily (he invented the addiction memoir), by walking prodigiously (in his beloved London) and by creating alter egos such as Elia, in which he combined the confessional and the satirical. The king of puns and witty in conversation, he was privately suffering from his own melancholia, and died a horrible death in December 1834, after a flesh-eating infection.
Eric G. Wilson is obviously a great admirer of Lamb. His biography strives for comprehensiveness: the epistolary and magazine scene of the 19th century is evoked, and the radical tendencies of Charles' friends demonstrated. Wilson goes into great detail, exploring each and every essay of Lamb, which often sags the pace of the book. He is also chaotic at times: referencing to characters and future developements that the reader is (yet) unaware of at that moment, hinting back later on at was written 150 pages ago. The biography ends abruptly with his death and fails to mention Lamb's legacy or his current reception in English literature.
Much as I love Charles Lamb, I didn't enjoy this biography about him to the fullest.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews