What an interesting mind this man had. I enjoyed all the essays in this collection, the later ones best. Mr. Ridgeway's Introduction and Commentaries were very good, especially the commentary on "Charles Lamb as a Writer". I agreed with his observations and thoughts; I believe I would have liked Charles Lamb alot. ( )

A classic of Romantic literature little appreciated today ( )

In a 1903 review of a collection of Lamb's works, the reviewer called his essays 'dainty and delightful,' 'gemlike,
possessing 'delicate grace and whimsical gaiety'. This is all still true, though the gaity has perhaps been muted a bit by the years. There is a sweetness and gentleness to Lamb that, while old-fashioned and sometimes seemingly stilted, still makes him, as that older reviewer said, an apt "companion for highways and byways and garden seats." ( )

This book contains twenty-seven short essays, generally five to seven pages long. These enjoyable essays address quite everyday matters with reverent levity. They are, on the whole, eminently accessible to the twenty-first century reader, as long as s/he is willing to forgive (or enjoy) some archaic language. The short, pithy Essays of Elia are ideal for the reader with only short chunks of time for reading, or who suffers from frequent interruptions (or from a short attention span).

Some of the essays have a playfully polemical point—as in the delightful piece on the inappropriateness of saying grace before luxuriant feasts, or the complaint about married couples' smugness around bachelors. Others are, to borrow from one of the titles, sheer “reverie”--a daydream in which the childless bachelor “Elia” imagines telling his children about his own childhood and their deceased mother; or the first essay reviving the memory of the South Sea House and its very idiosyncratic occupants.

The third essay in the volume disentangles the essayist Charles Lamb from his pseudonym Elia—Elia begins to become another character altogether, a former schoolmate of Lamb. The essay exposes the young Lamb's excessive privileges during his education at Christ's Hospital. Elia recalls the fine foods Lamb enjoyed while he (Elia) and the other boys almost starved. He relates the rumours that circulated about the more fortuate boy, and altogether renders Lamb a less-than-respectable figure. From then on, although we know that the essays were written by Lamb, we are never quite sure how his opinion relates to “Elia's.”

This reviewer's favourite essay is “A Chapter on Ears,” in which we learn that Elia “ha[s] no ear,” only to be reassured that he is not “by nature destitute of those twin appendages, hanging ornaments...those ingenious labyrinthine inlets – those indispensable side-intelligencers” (45-46). Elia means only to comment on his lack of musical sensibility, and what follows is a riotously funny description of his experiences listening to the music he cannot appreciate.

Bibliophiles will sympathize with Elia's analysis of the “two races of men,” namely “borrowers” and “lenders.” He reserves special venom for the “borrowers of books,” with the exception of one very easily identifiable and respectable book-borrrower, “S.T.C.” (Coleridge was a good friend of the Lambs). The essay captures perfectly the nagging discomfort the lender feels when scanning her/his collection. Elia remarks on “That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you” and “The slight vacuum in the left-hand case – two shelves from the ceiling – scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser” (31). In a brief tour of his library, he scolds his borrowing friends while providing delightfully frank character sketches of these biblioklepts, who may or may not be figments of Lamb's very lively imagination.

This Hesperus Classics edition is ideal for the general reader. There is no scholarly apparatus, just a handful of notes to decode some of Lamb's allusions to his contemporaries. The foreword by Matthew Sweet provides just enough orientation to the essays—a little biography, a little historical context, a theme or two—to ensure that the reader will not be discouraged by the quite unfamiliar style and genre of the text. Readers who like to make annotations will find the margins rather ungenerous. Other than this small inconvenience, the physical book is simple in design but attractive to the eye.

"I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own."

Having read this rather delightful little volume, I can believe it. Originally published in 1823, these essays give us a glimpse into a vanished everyday, coloured by the homely and conservative tastes of a London nostalgic.

"Elia" spends little time on big issues. His concern is for the trivial, the comforting, the eccentric. Topics that get particular attention include the theatre, the Temple area of London, childhood, and food. We get affectionate portraits of old ladies, lawyers, artists, and chimney sweeps. There are bitter or critical passages, on theatre audiences, old schoolmasters, or prayer habits, that stop the book from becoming too sentimental.

Probably the most compelling thing about the book to a modern reader is the perspective it gives on a particular period in history. This isn't a historian's history, it's a window on eighteenth-century London provided by a contemporary observer. It's hardly thorough -- Lamb's attention flits about erratically -- but it's authentic. Well, mostly so -- "Elia"'s life isn't Charles Lamb's, and there is much talk of family without a mention of the sort of tragedy that affected Lamb's own family.

As this book was kindly provided by Hesperus Press for review, I should comment on this particular edition. For scholars, I wouldn't particulary recommend it. The footnotes are incredibly sparse, so much so that one wonders why they're present at all; and Lamb's own notes in the text sometimes appear on the wrong page. But for the casual reader, what Hesperus have done fits the bill well. It's elegantly presented, and both looks and feels like a quality volume.

All in all, a pleasure to read. ( )