74-496: The Lambs, Inc. (also known as The Lambs Club ) is a social club in New York City for actors, songwriters, and others involved in the theatre. It is America's oldest theatrical organization. "The Lambs" is a registered trademark of The Lambs, Inc.; and the club has been commonly referred to as The Lambs Club and The Lambs Theater since 1874. The club's name honors the essayist Charles Lamb and his sister Mary , who during
148-597: A mourning ring sent to Lamb and his sister. Fortuitously, Lamb's first publication was in 1796, when four sonnets by "Mr Charles Lamb of the India House" appeared in Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects . In 1797 he contributed additional blank verse to the second edition, and met the Wordsworths, William and Dorothy , on his short summer holiday with Coleridge at Nether Stowey , thereby also striking up
222-426: A " cult favourite " than an author with mass popular or scholarly appeal. Anne Fadiman notes regretfully that Lamb is not widely read in modern times: "I do not understand why so few other readers are clamoring for his company... [He] is kept alive largely through the tenuous resuscitations of university English departments.". Two of the houses at Christ's Hospital (Lamb A and Lamb B) are named in his honour. and he
296-593: A Twelvemonth After the Events", "Charity", "Sonnet to a Friend" and "David" express his religious faith, while his poem "Living Without God in the World" has been called a "poetic attack" on unbelief, in which Lamb expresses his disgust at atheism, attributing it to pride. There has always been a small but enduring following for Lamb's works, as the long-running and still-active Charles Lamb Bulletin demonstrates. Because of his quirky, even bizarre, style, he has been more of
370-499: A bachelor. His collected essays, under the title Essays of Elia , were published in 1823 ("Elia" being the pen name Lamb used as a contributor to The London Magazine ). The Essays of Elia would be criticised in the Quarterly Review (January 1823) by Robert Southey , who thought its author to be irreligious. When Charles read the review, entitled "The Progress of Infidelity", he was filled with indignation, and wrote
444-567: A clerical career. While Coleridge and other scholarly boys were able to go on to Cambridge, Lamb left school at fourteen and was forced to find a more prosaic career. For a short time he worked in the office of Joseph Paice , a London merchant, and then, for 23 weeks, until 8 February 1792, held a small post in the Examiner's Office of the South Sea House . Its subsequent downfall in a pyramid scheme after Lamb left would be contrasted to
518-726: A club similar to The Lambs, because there were too many producer members of The Lambs. Since its founding, there have been more than 6,700 Lambs, including: Fred Astaire , Irving Berlin , Henry Blossom , Sid Caesar , James Cagney , Eddie Cantor , George M. Cohan , Cecil B. DeMille , W.C. Fields , Albert Hague , Mark Hart , Silvio Hein , Ken Howard , Al Jolson , John F. Madden , Conrad Nagel , Eugene O'Neill , Donald Pippin , Joyce Randolph Cliff Robertson , Edward G. Robinson , Will Rogers , John Philip Sousa , Spencer Tracy , Abe Vigoda , Fred Waring , and Jack Whiting . Current honorary members include Matthew Broderick and Jim Dale . The Lambs' website contains
592-407: A day of horrors – All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. In the final years of the 18th century, Lamb began to work on prose, first in a novella entitled Rosamund Gray , which tells the story of a young girl whose character is thought to be based on Ann Simmons, an early love interest. Although the story is not particularly successful as a narrative because of Lamb's poor sense of plot, it
666-491: A kind of weekly salon for many of the most outstanding theatrical and literary figures of the day. In 1869, a club, The Lambs , was formed in London to carry on their salon tradition. The actor Henry James Montague founded the club's New York counterpart in 1874. Charles Lamb, having been to school with Samuel Coleridge, counted Coleridge as perhaps his closest, and certainly his oldest, friend. On his deathbed, Coleridge had
740-688: A letter to his friend Bernard Barton , where Lamb declared he hated the review, and emphasised that his words "meant no harm to religion". First, Lamb did not want to retort, since he actually admired Southey; but later he felt the need to write a letter "Elia to Southey", in which he complained and expressed that the fact that he was a dissenter of the Church, did not make him an irreligious man. The letter would be published in The London Magazine , in October 1823: Rightly taken, Sir, that Paper
814-504: A lifelong friendship with William. In London, Lamb became familiar with a group of young writers who favoured political reform, including Percy Bysshe Shelley , William Hazlitt , Leigh Hunt and William Hone . Lamb continued to clerk for the East India Company and doubled as a writer in various genres, his tragedy , John Woodvil , being published in 1802. His farce , Mr H , was performed at Drury Lane in 1807, where it
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#1732801632922888-626: A listing of its past and current members. The president of The Lambs is called "The Shepherd". The Club displays the portraits of all its presidents, painted by artists such as James Montgomery Flagg and Everett Raymond Kinstler . The Lambs has had many Manhattan homes since 1874, beginning with Delmonico's Restaurant in Union Square . Then in 1875 they met at the Maison Doree on the south side of 14th St. opposite Union Square; 1876–77 next to Wallack's theater at 848 Broadway; 1877–78 at
962-434: A mental breakdown. She took the kitchen knife she had been holding, unsheathed it, and approached her mother, who was sitting down. Mary, "worn down to a state of extreme nervous misery by attention to needlework by day and to her mother at night", was seized with acute mania and stabbed her mother in the heart with a table knife. Charles ran into the house soon after the murder and took the knife out of Mary's hand. Later in
1036-415: A mental facility during 1795: Coleridge, I know not what suffering scenes you have gone through at Bristol. My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks that finished last year and began this your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a mad house at Hoxton—I am got somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one. But mad I was—and many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough to make
1110-484: A momentary eye-encounter with those stern bright visages, staring reciprocally – all Ovid on the walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions. Little is known about Charles's life before he was seven other than that Mary taught him to read at a very early age and he read voraciously. It is believed that he had smallpox during his early years, which forced him into a long period of convalescence. After this period of recovery Lamb began to take lessons from Mrs Reynolds,
1184-559: A more complex reflection on the imaginative representation of Shakespearean dramas: Shakespeare's dramas are for Lamb the object of a complex cognitive process that does not require sensible data, but only imaginative elements that are suggestively elicited by words. In the altered state of consciousness that the dreamlike experience of reading stands for, Lamb can see Shakespeare's own conceptions mentally materialized. Besides contributing to Shakespeare's reception with his and his sister's book Tales From Shakespeare , Lamb also contributed to
1258-485: A percentage of his share of Brigadoon royalties to The Lambs' Foundation. The Lambs, Friars , and Players often are confused. In 1964, long-time syndicated columnist Earl Wilson put it this way: "Long ago a New Yorker asked the difference between the Lambs, Friars, and Players, since the membership was, at the time, predominantly from Broadway." It was left to "a wit believed to have been George S. Kaufman " to draw
1332-462: A public lunatic asylum. Lamb used a large part of his relatively meagre income to keep his beloved sister in the private "madhouse" in Islington . With the help of friends, Lamb succeeded in obtaining his sister's release from what would otherwise have been lifelong imprisonment. Although there was no legal status of "insanity" at the time, the jury returned the verdict of "lunacy" which was how she
1406-512: A shared home at Mitre Court Buildings in the Temple, where they would live until 1809. In 1800, Mary's illness came back and Charles had to take her back again to the asylum. In those days, Charles sent a letter to Coleridge, in which he admitted he felt melancholic and lonely, adding "I almost wish that Mary were dead." Later she would come back, and both he and his sister would enjoy an active and rich social life. Their London quarters became
1480-474: A volume if all told. My Sonnets I have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and will some day communicate to you. Mary Lamb's illness was more severe than her brother's, and it led her to become aggressive on a fatal occasion. On 22 September 1796, while preparing dinner, Mary became angry with her apprentice, roughly shoving the little girl out of her way and pushing her into another room. Her mother, Elizabeth, began admonishing her for this, and Mary had
1554-566: A woman who lived in the Temple and is believed to have been the former wife of a lawyer. Mrs Reynolds must have been a sympathetic schoolmistress because Lamb maintained a relationship with her throughout his life and she is known to have attended dinner parties held by Mary and Charles in the 1820s. E. V. Lucas suggests that sometime in 1781 Charles left Mrs Reynolds and began to study at the Academy of William Bird. His time with William Bird did not last long, however, because by October 1782 Lamb
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#17328016329221628-426: A young woman named Ann Simmons. Although no epistolary record exists of the relationship between the two, Lamb seems to have spent years wooing her. The record of the love exists in several accounts of Lamb's writing. "Rosamund Gray" is a story of a young man named Allen Clare who loves Rosamund Gray but their relationship comes to nothing because of her sudden death. Miss Simmons also appears in several Elia essays under
1702-510: A youthful companion to the boy but his sister Mary, being born eleven years before him, was probably his closest playmate. Lamb was also cared for by his paternal aunt Hetty, who seems to have had a particular fondness for him. A number of writings by both Charles and Mary suggest that the conflict between Aunt Hetty and her sister-in-law created a certain degree of tension in the Lamb household. However, Charles speaks fondly of her and her presence in
1776-547: Is also honoured by The Latymer School , a grammar school in Edmonton, a suburb of London where he lived for a time: it has six houses, one of which, Lamb, is named after him. A major academic prize awarded each year at Christ's Hospital School's speech day is "The Lamb Prize for Independent Study". Sir Edward Elgar wrote an orchestral work, Dream Children , inspired by Lamb's essay of that title . A quotation from Lamb, "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once",' serves as
1850-498: Is now most famous. Notwithstanding, Lamb's contributions to Coleridge's second edition of the Poems on Various Subjects showed significant growth as a poet. These poems included The Tomb of Douglas and A Vision of Repentance . Because of a temporary falling out with Coleridge, Lamb's poems were to be excluded in the third edition of the Poems though as it turned out a third edition never emerged. Instead, Coleridge's next publication
1924-456: Is still remembered and widely read today, being often included in anthologies of British and Romantic period poetry. Of particular interest to Lambarians is the opening verse of the original version of "The Old Familiar Faces", which is concerned with Lamb's mother, whom Mary Lamb killed. It was a verse that Lamb chose to remove from the edition of his Collected Work published in 1818: I had a mother, but she died, and left me, Died prematurely in
1998-574: The Bluecoat school has been very very kind to us, and we have no other friend, but thank God I am very calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to do. Write, —as religious a letter as possible— but no mention of what is gone and done with. —With me "the former things are passed away," and I have something more to do that [than] to feel. God almighty have us all in his keeping. Charles took over responsibility for Mary after refusing his brother John's suggestion that they have her committed to
2072-531: The London Borough of Enfield ). Lamb is buried in All Saints' Churchyard , Edmonton. His sister, who was ten years his senior, survived him by more than a dozen years. She is buried beside him. Lamb's first publication was the inclusion of four sonnets in Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects , published in 1796 by Joseph Cottle . The sonnets were significantly influenced by the poems of Burns and
2146-830: The Reflector in 1811 with the title "On Garrick, and Acting; and the Plays of Shakspeare, considered with reference to their fitness for Stage Representation”--was prompted in response to his viewing of the David Garrick memorial on the west wall of Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, and has often been taken as the ultimate Romantic dismissal of the theatre. In the essay, Lamb argues that Shakespeare’s plays should be read rather than performed to protect them from commercial performance and celebrity culture. The essay criticizes contemporary stage practice even as it develops
2220-542: The United States Army during World War I . It showed Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer (inspired by a 1914 British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose) with the caption "I Want YOU for U.S. Army". Flagg had first created the image for the July 6, 1916, cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper with the headline "What Are You Doing for Preparedness?" Over four million copies of
2294-640: The Great Hall of the National Portrait Gallery. In 1948, he appeared in a Pabst Blue Ribbon magazine ad which featured the illustrator working at an easel in his New York studio with a young lady standing at his side and a tray with an open bottle of Pabst and two filled glasses sat before them. Toward the end of his life, when deteriorating eyesight forced him to give up his art, "he often took out his frustrations on his friends and himself." He died on May 27, 1960, in New York City. He
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2368-656: The Union Square Hotel, 6 Union Square; 1879 within a brownstone at 19 East 16th St.; 1880–91 at a Brownstone at 34 West 26th St.; 1891 at the Gilsey House, 1200 Broadway; 1892 at 8 West 29th St.; 1893–96 at 26 West 31st St.; 1897–1905 at 70 West 36th St., what was formerly and thereafter Keen's Chophouse remodeled by Stanford White to be a clubhouse. In 1905, the club moved to 128–130 West 44th Street, designed by Stanford White and doubled in size in 1915. The club remained at 44th Street until 1975, when it lost
2442-616: The age of 12. By 14, he was a contributing artist for Life magazine, and the following year was on the staff of another magazine, Judge . From 1894 through 1898, he attended the Art Students League of New York . He studied fine art in London and Paris from 1898 to 1900, after which he returned to the United States, where he produced countless illustrations for books, magazine covers, political and humorous cartoons, advertising, and spot drawings. Among his creations
2516-624: The better part of the next quarter century. Christianity played an important role in Lamb's personal life: although he was not a churchman he "sought consolation in religion," as shown in letters he wrote to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Bernard Barton in which he describes the New Testament as his "best guide" for life and recalls how he used to read the Psalms for one or two hours without getting tired. Other writings also deal with his Christian beliefs. Like his friend Coleridge, Lamb
2590-600: The building into the Chatwal New York hotel. The Chatwal Hotel contains the Lambs Club restaurant although there is no relation between the hotel and The Lambs. Since 1976, The Lambs' Clubhouse has been leased space at 3 West 51st St., adjacent to Rockefeller Center . The Lambs has elected more than 6,700 members over the decades, counting actors and theater owners, playwrights and painters, singers and sculptors, and today’s podcasters and comedy writers. Over
2664-704: The building to foreclosure. It was purchased from a bank by the Church of the Nazarene , which leased part of the building for what would become the Off Broadway Lamb's Theatre . The building was designated a New York City Landmark in September 1974 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 3, 1982. The church sold the building in 2006 to Hampshire Hotels, which renovated
2738-672: The company's prosperity in the first Elia essay. On 5 April 1792 he went to work in the Accountant's Office for the British East India Company , the death of his father's employer having ruined the family's fortunes. Charles would continue to work there for 25 years, until his retirement with pension (the "superannuation" he refers to in the title of one essay). In 1792 while tending to his grandmother, Mary Field, in Hertfordshire, Charles Lamb fell in love with
2812-510: The decades it was at The Lambs that hit shows and songs were launched, partnerships and friendships formed, and bonds of fellowship made. The Lambs is also a historical society, preserving and promoting entertainment history stretching back to the 19th century. The club’s art collection of oil paintings, theatrical memorabilia, and playbills, together with a private research library, is a museum of American entertainment history. The Lambs are currently digitizing its collection to make it available to
2886-540: The distinction: "The Players are gentlemen trying to be actors, the Lambs are actors trying to be gentlemen, and the Friars are neither trying to be both." Its members have been instrumental in the formation of ASCAP , Actors' Equity and The Actors' Fund of America , Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and in the merger that created SAG-AFTRA . Of the first 21 council members of Actors' Equity, 20 were members of The Lambs. The meetings to form Actors' Equity were held at The Players,
2960-407: The early 19th century played host to actors and literati at their famed salon in London. In the spring of 1869, The Lambs was founded in London by actors led by John Hare , the first Shepherd (or president), looking to socialize with like-minded people. Several of those, most notably Henry James Montague , came to the United States and formed The Lambs of New York during Christmas week of 1874. It
3034-540: The epigraph to Harper Lee 's novel To Kill a Mockingbird . The Charles Lamb pub in Islington is named after him. Henry James Montague , founder of The Lambs Club, named it after the salon of Charles and his sister Mary . Charles Lamb plays an important role in the plot of Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 's novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society . James Montgomery Flagg James Montgomery Flagg (June 18, 1877 – May 27, 1960)
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3108-606: The essay form for which he eventually became famous began as early as 1811 in a series of open letters to Leigh Hunt's Reflector . The most famous of these early essays is "The Londoner", in which Lamb famously derides the contemporary fascination with nature and the countryside. In another well-known Reflector essay of 1811, he deemed William Hogarth 's images to be books, filled with "the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read." He would continue to fine-tune his craft, experimenting with different essayistic voices and personae, for
3182-474: The evening, Charles found a local place for Mary in a private mental facility called Fisher House, which had been found with the help of a doctor friend of his. While reports were published by the media, Charles wrote a letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in connection to the matricide: MY dearest friend – White or some of my friends or the public papers by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you
3256-465: The fact that his home was not far distant, thus enabling him, unlike many other boys, to return often to its safety. Years later, in his essay "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago", Lamb described these events, speaking of himself in the third person as "L". "I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some peculiar advantages, which I and other of his schoolfellows had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had
3330-455: The flow of significant literary criticism, primarily of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, from Lamb's pen. Immersion in seventeenth-century authors, such as Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne , also changed the way Lamb wrote, adding a distinct flavour to his writing style. Lamb's friend the essayist William Hazlitt thus characterised him: "Mr. Lamb ... does not march boldly along with the crowd .... He prefers bye-ways to highways . When
3404-475: The full tide of human life pours along to some festive show, to some pageant of a day, Elia would stand on one side to look over an old book-stall, or stroll down some deserted pathway in search of a pensive description over a tottering doorway, or some quaint device in architecture, illustrative of embryo art and ancient manners. Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian ...." Although he did not write his first Elia essay until 1820, Lamb's gradual perfection of
3478-472: The house seems to have brought a great deal of comfort to him. Some of Lamb's fondest childhood memories were of time spent with Mrs Field, his maternal grandmother, who was for many years a servant to the Plumer family, who owned a large country house called Blakesware, near Widford , Hertfordshire. After the death of Mrs Plumer, Lamb's grandmother was in sole charge of the large home and, as William Plumer
3552-509: The most since the 1960s. Books Newspapers Websites Charles Lamb (writer) Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian , best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare , co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–1847). Friends with such literary luminaries as Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Robert Southey , William Wordsworth , Dorothy Wordsworth and William Hazlitt , Lamb
3626-426: The name "Alice M". The essays "Dream Children", "New Year's Eve", and several others, speak of the many years that Lamb spent pursuing his love that ultimately failed. Miss Simmons eventually went on to marry a silversmith and Lamb called the failure of the affair his "great disappointment". Both Charles and his sister Mary had a period of mental illness. As he himself confessed in a letter, Charles spent six weeks in
3700-460: The outlines. My poor dear dearest sister in a fit of insanity has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a mad house, from whence I fear she must be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses, – I eat and drink and sleep, and have my judgment I believe very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr Norris of
3774-764: The piece. In 1917, he also attended the Illustrators' Ball, one of many annual masquerade balls in Manhattan , New York . The artists-only event was held in the 1845-built Hotel Brevoort in Greenwich Village , a neighborhood where many artists and cartoonists lived at the time. That year, the theme was " Kaleidoscopic Ball," with no specific requirements for costumes. Flagg dressed as the Scottish sailor Captain William Kidd . At his peak, Flagg
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#17328016329223848-510: The poster were printed during World War I, and it was revived for World War II . Flagg used his own face for that of Uncle Sam (adding age and the white goatee), he said later, simply to avoid the trouble of arranging for a model. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt praised his resourcefulness for using his own face as the model. Flagg had a neighbor, Walter Botts, pose as a model for the strong shoulders, and thrusting forefinger of
3922-455: The privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through some invidious distinction, which was denied to us." Christ's Hospital was a typical English boarding school and many students later wrote of the terrible violence they suffered there. The upper master (i.e. principal or headteacher) of the school from 1778 to 1799 was Reverend James Boyer , a man renowned for his unpredictable and capricious temper. In one famous story Boyer
3996-621: The public. Starting in 1974, the Lambs has donated thousands of important historic documents to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. As the club prepared to celebrate its sesquicentennial in 2024, it undertook a program to grow its membership. In 2023 author Kevin C. Fitzpatrick was elected the 36th Shepherd of The Lambs, and producer Don M. Spiro elected The Boy (vice president). The Lambs celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2024 by reaching 250 members,
4070-571: The recovery of acquaintance with Shakespeare's contemporaries. Accelerating the increasing interest of the time in the older writers, and building for himself a reputation as an antiquarian, in 1808 Lamb compiled a collection of extracts from the old dramatists, Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets Who Lived About the Time of Shakespeare . This also contained critical "characters" of the old writers, which added to
4144-456: The sonnets of William Bowles , a largely forgotten poet of the late 18th century. Lamb's poems garnered little attention and are seldom read today. As he himself came to realise, he was a much more talented prose stylist than poet. Indeed, one of the most celebrated poets of the day—William Wordsworth—wrote to John Scott as early as 1815 that Lamb "writes prose exquisitely"—and this was five years before Lamb began The Essays of Elia for which he
4218-542: Was Tales From Shakespeare , which ran through two editions for Godwin and has been published dozens of times in countless editions ever since. The book contains artful prose summaries of some of Shakespeare's most well-loved works. According to Lamb, he worked primarily on Shakespeare's tragedies, while Mary focused mainly on the comedies. Lamb's essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare Considered with Reference to their Fitness for Stage Representation”--originally published in
4292-466: Was a comic strip that appeared regularly in Judge from 1903 until 1907, about a tramp character titled Nervy Nat. In 1915, he accepted commissions from Calkins and Holden to create advertisements for Edison Photo and Adler Rochester Overcoats but only on the condition that his name would not be associated with the campaign. He created his most famous work in 1917, a poster to encourage recruitment in
4366-588: Was a lawyer's clerk and spent most of his professional life as the assistant to barrister Samuel Salt , who lived in the Inner Temple in the legal district of London; it was there, in Crown Office Row , that Charles Lamb was born and spent his youth. Lamb created a portrait of his father in his "Elia on the Old Benchers" under the name Lovel. Lamb's older brother was too much his senior to be
4440-509: Was an American artist , comics artist , and illustrator . He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning , but is best remembered for his political posters, particularly his 1917 poster of Uncle Sam created for United States Army recruitment during World War I . Flagg was born on June 18, 1877, in Pelham, New York . He was enthusiastic about drawing from a young age, and had illustrations accepted by national magazines by
4514-528: Was at the centre of a major literary circle in England. He has been referred to by E. V. Lucas , his principal biographer, as "the most lovable figure in English literature". Lamb was born in London, the son of John Lamb ( c. 1725 –1799) and Elizabeth (died 1796), née Field. Lamb had an elder brother, also John, and sister, Mary; four other siblings did not survive infancy. John Lamb (Lamb's father)
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#17328016329224588-492: Was confined only to the family of the writer, so Lamb was prevented from attending and only wrote a letter to Rev. James Gilman, Coleridge's physician and close friend, expressing his condolences. On 27 December 1834, Lamb died of a streptococcal infection, erysipelas , contracted from a minor graze on his face sustained after slipping in the street; he was 59. From 1833 until their deaths, Charles and Mary lived at Bay Cottage, Church Street, Edmonton , north of London (now part of
4662-579: Was enrolled in Christ's Hospital , a charity boarding school chartered by King Edward VI in 1553. A thorough record of Christ's Hospital is to be found in several essays by Lamb as well as The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt and the Biographia Literaria of Samuel Taylor Coleridge , with whom Charles developed a friendship that would last for their entire lives. Despite the school's brutality, Lamb got along well there, due in part, perhaps, to
4736-462: Was freed from guilt of willful murder, on the condition that Charles take personal responsibility for her safekeeping. The 1799 death of John Lamb was something of a relief to Charles because his father had been mentally incapacitated for a number of years since having a stroke. The death of his father also meant that Mary could come to live again with him in Pentonville , and in 1800 they set up
4810-857: Was incorporated in 1877 in New York City. Shortly afterward the London Lambs closed. The Actors' strike of 1919 was settled in The Lambs, which was referred to as "Local One." In 1924, it celebrated its 50-year anniversary at the Earl Carroll Theatre . Historically, The Lambs has been the spawning ground of plays, friendships and partnerships. Mark Twain Tonight (with Hal Holbrook ) and Stalag 17 were first performed at The Lambs before their national successes. Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe first met at The Lambs, often trying works-in-progress on their fellow Lambs. Loewe left
4884-665: Was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx , New York City. Fort Knox, Kentucky , has a parade field named for and dedicated to Flagg. It is called Flagg Field and located behind the Fort Knox Hotel. Fort Knox is also the home of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, which borders Flagg Field. Flagg spent summers in Biddeford Pool, Maine , and his home, the James Montgomery Flagg House ,
4958-473: Was not against Graces, but Want of Grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it. . . You have never ridiculed, I believe, what you thought to be religion, but you are always girding at what some pious, but perhaps mistaken folks, think to be so. A further collection called The Last Essays of Elia was published in 1833, shortly before Lamb's death. Also, in 1834, Samuel Coleridge died. The funeral
5032-572: Was often absent, Charles had free rein of the place during his visits. A picture of these visits can be glimpsed in the Elia essay Blakesmoor in H—shire . Why, every plank and panel of that house for me had magic in it. The tapestried bed-rooms – tapestry so much better than painting – not adorning merely, but peopling the wainscots – at which childhood ever and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as quickly) to exercise its tender courage in
5106-534: Was reported to have been the highest-paid magazine illustrator in America. He worked for The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's , which were two of the most popular U.S. journals. In 1946, Flagg published his autobiography, Roses and Buckshot . Apart from his work as an illustrator, Flagg painted portraits which reveal the influence of John Singer Sargent . Flagg's sitters included Mark Twain and Ethel Barrymore ; his portrait of Jack Dempsey now hangs in
5180-455: Was roundly booed. In the same year, Tales from Shakespeare (Charles handled the tragedies; his sister Mary, the comedies) was published, and became a best seller for William Godwin 's "Children's Library". On 20 July 1819, at age 44, Lamb, who, because of family commitments, had never married, fell in love with an actress, Fanny Kelly , of Covent Garden , and besides writing her a sonnet he also proposed marriage. She refused him, and he died
5254-496: Was said to have knocked one of Leigh Hunt's teeth out by throwing a copy of Homer at him from across the room. Lamb seemed to have escaped much of this brutality, in part because of his amiable personality and in part because Samuel Salt, his father's employer and Lamb's sponsor at the school, was one of the institute's governors. Charles Lamb had a stutter and this "inconquerable impediment" in his speech deprived him of Grecian status at Christ's Hospital, thus disqualifying him for
5328-689: Was sympathetic to Priestleyan Unitarianism and was a Dissenter , and he was described by Coleridge himself as one whose "faith in Jesus ha[d] been preserved" even after the family tragedy. Wordsworth also described him as a firm Christian in the poem "Written After the Death of Charles Lamb", Alfred Ainger , in his work Charles Lamb , writes that Lamb's religion had become "an habit". Lamb's own poems "On The Lord's Prayer", "A Vision of Repentance", "The Young Catechist", "Composed at Midnight", "Suffer Little Children, and Forbid Them Not to Come Unto Me", "Written
5402-405: Was the monumentally influential Lyrical Ballads co-published with Wordsworth. Lamb, on the other hand, published a book entitled Blank Verse with Charles Lloyd , the mentally unstable son of the founder of Lloyds Bank . Lamb's most famous poem was written at this time and entitled " The Old Familiar Faces ". Like most of Lamb's poems, it is unabashedly sentimental, and perhaps for this reason it
5476-479: Was well thought of by Lamb's contemporaries and led Shelley to observe, "what a lovely thing is Rosamund Gray ! How much knowledge of the sweetest part of our nature in it!" (Quoted in Barnett, page 50) In the first years of the 19th century, Lamb began a fruitful literary cooperation with his sister Mary. Together they wrote at least three books for William Godwin 's Juvenile Library. The most successful of these
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