Essays of Elia (Sightline Books: the Iowa Series in Literary Nonfiction) [Paperback]

Charles Lamb (Author)

Book Description

Series: Sightline Books | Publication Date: June 5, 2003

Charles Lamb, one of the most engaging personal essayists of all time, began publishing his unforgettable, entertaining Elia essays in the London Magazine in 1820; they were so immediately popular that a book-length collection was published in 1823. Inventing the persona of “Elia” allowed Lamb to be shockingly honest and to gain a playful distance for self-examination. The resulting essays touch upon a wide range of compelling subjects from the deliciously humorous “Dissertation upon Roast Pig” to the poignantly reflective “New Year's Eve.” Yet collectively they also comprise a fascinating personal memoir, veiled under the pseudonymous disguise of Elia. Now back in print with a new foreword by the distinguished personal essayist Phillip Lopate and with useful annotations, Essays of Elia will provide a delicious stylistic treat for all readers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“. . . one of the classics of English prose and a cornerstone of the personal essay tradition. All personal essayists worth their salt owe a huge debt to this generous and generative collection. . . ; all apprentice essayists who would strive to make headway in the form will need to read it. . . . Essays of Elia is not only an essential text, but a near-buried treasure, an all-but-lost masterpiece in our contemporary culture.” — Phillip Lopate

About the Author

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) worked as a clerk for the East India Company his entire life; literary fame came to him relatively late, after attempts in the Welds of drama and poetry. He is also known for Tales from Shakespeare, adaptations for children written in collaboration with his sister, Mary, and Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare.

Product Details

• Paperback: 476 pages
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press (June 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877458510
• ISBN-13: 978-0877458517
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a disappointing scan, November 28, 2009

By 

M. A. White (Oakland, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Essays of Elia (Volume 1) (Paperback)

The product description for this book advised that the book had been recreated from the original using optical character recognition software. That notice should have been highlighted in flashing red lights. The quality of this publication is exceedingly poor. It's not a typo here and there; it's fraught with typos, strange line breaks, and the inclusion of odd characters. If only one -- just one -- person had bothered to read this book after it had been produced using OCR, the copy could easily have been cleaned up. As it is, the book is practically unreadable. The transcription problems are so numerous that they completely distract from the pleasures of the actual text. In their efforts to keep costs low, the publisher, General Books LLC, has produced a book that is un-buyable -- a complete waste of money. I had hoped to add this classic book to my personal library, but now it's only getting added to my recycling bin.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully produced - shame about the editing, May 27, 2010

By 

Wild Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essays of Elia (Hesperus Classics) (Paperback)

Lamb is one of the great secrets of the nineteenth century. He's witty, spiky, elusive and puzzling. His essays lull you into a false sense of charm and nostalgia, but within them are sharp and penetrating comments on human behaviour. They run alongside great Romantic works like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison' or William Wordsworth's 'The Prelude' as wonderful, moving pieces of autobiography and self-examination. Plus they are beautifully written, with their descriptions of forgotten places in London, the slowly decaying 'South Sea House', for instance, or the pastoral green of the Inner Temple Gardens, hidden away in the midst of the capital. And behind them, always, is a sense that these nostalgic descriptions are all the more enjoyable because they are hard-won; they come out of the tragedy and courage of Lamb's personal life, and his lifelong struggle with his own depression and with his sister's serious mental illness. They also have a sharply political edge to them - they were published in the 'London Magazine' alongside essays by Hazlitt and De Quincey, and while they seem at first glance simply charming, they often slyly comment on contemporary prejudice.

Lamb hasn't been popular through the 20th century - an attack on him by F. R. Leavis and his disciples in the 1930s was the start of the rot, and the gradual decline of the essay has meant he's been almost completely overlooked (though not by the Charles Lamb Society, who are still going in London and meet regularly for lectures - and for Lamb's birthday drinks). So a new edition of Lamb is really to be celebrated, especially one as beautifully produced as this.

But alas! This is a lovely edition, but it has one huge flaw for me. There are only 27 essays here and there should be 28: the edition claims to be a reprint of 'Essays of Elia', but it leaves out one of Lamb's most important essays, 'Imperfect Sympathies'. There's not even a note to explain this omission. Why is this important? Well, 'Imperfect Sympathies' is one of the most difficult, challenging, shocking of Lamb's essays - it starts off with a funny skit on why Elia doesn't like Scotchmen: 'I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair'. Scotchmen don't get jokes. They're terribly literal:

"I have a print of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to [a Scotchman]. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my friends) -- when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal pretensions."

But then, terribly, the essay takes a darker turn, as Elia voices prejudices about Jewishness and black people. I've always read this essay as a reflection on the nature of prejudice. It's not LAMB who's voicing these opinions - it's Elia, and he's doing so (I think) to make us see how an innocent sounding joke (against Scotchmen), and a bit of 'harmless' prejudice can be the slippery slope to something much worse - as such, it's very timely.

But it's up to us, surely, to read this difficult essay and decide for ourselves. Simply leaving it out - without any word of acknowledgement - is bad editorial practice (though the notes to this edition, too, are pretty much non-existent). And it's also giving people a false sense of Lamb - a kind of misguided political correctness which actually amounts to admitting that these editors do think Lamb is a racist old bigot and there are some aspects of his writing which we'd just better not mention. Disrespectful to Lamb, and to his readers, I'd say...

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good book in search of an appreciative reader?, February 10, 2010

By 

Flush Barrett-Browning (Tennessee Valley) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essays of Elia (Hesperus Classics) (Paperback)

Charles Lamb's 'Essays of Elia' are a balm to the spirit and a delight to those who love words.

Surely everyone remembers Lamb and his tragic story from high school lit classes, but (perhaps as he intended) his essays transcend the reality of his life and speak to the modern reader. Lamb is erudite; he is funny; he is precise and flamboyant; in a phrase, he is a literary tour de force.

There are twenty-seven well-wrought essays, among them interesting insights on Valentines Day, ears, gallantry, and, of course, his famous discourse on roast pig.

Modern reader do not despair in this age of quick and easy journalism; here's a master at work.

Read, smile, relax!