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  • Published: 21 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9780141392912
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $39.99

Selected Prose




The essential works of a master of English prose, reissued in Penguin Classics

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, has obstructed how we appreciate the sheer quality of his work.

  • Published: 21 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9780141392912
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $39.99

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist, 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.

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