Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist with Welsh heritage, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare (1807), which he produced along with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764-1847). Charles and Mary both suffered periods of mental illness, and Charles spent six weeks in a psychiatric hospital during 1795. He was, however, already making his name as a poet. Despite Lamb's bouts of melancholia, both he and his sister enjoyed an active and rich social life. Their London quarters became a kind of weekly salon for many of the most outstanding theatrical and literary figures of the day. On her own, Mary Lamb published an epistolary work, Mrs Leicester's School (1809) which the poet Samuel Coleridge believed would and should be "acknowledged as a rich jewel in the treasury of our permanent English literature. " Among their other famous works are: Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808) and Poetry for Children (1809).

This selection brings together the best prose writings of the great early nineteenth-century essayist Charles Lamb, whose shrewd wit and convivial style have endeared him to generations of readers. These pieces include early discussions of Hogarth and Shakespeare; masterly essays written under the pen-name 'Elia' that range over such subjects as drunkenness, witches, dreams, marriage and the joy of roast pig; and letters to Lamb's circle of contemporaries, among them Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Wryly amused by the world, allusive, searching and endlessly inventive, these are the essential works of a master of English prose. In his introduction Adam Phillips discusses how Charles Lamb's tragic life and sainted reputation, caring for his mentally ill sister Mary, belied the quality of his work. This edition also includes a biographical index of Lamb's correspondents. Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist best known for his humorous Essays of Elia from which the essay 'A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig' is taken. Lamb enjoyed a rich social life and became part of a group of young writers that included William Hazlitt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge with whom he shared a lifelong friendship. Lamb never achieved the same literary success as his friends but his influence on the English essay form cannot be underestimated and his book, Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets is remembered for popularising the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries.

After killing her mother with a carving knife, Mary Lamb spent the rest of her life in and out of madhouses; yet the crime and its aftermath opened up a new life. Freed to read extensively, she discovered her talent for writing and, with her brother, the essayist Charles Lamb, collaborated on the famous Tales from Shakespeare. This narrative of a nearly forgotten woman is a tapestry of insights into creativity and madness, the changing lives of women, and the redemptive power of the written word.