查尔斯·兰姆

查尔斯·兰姆（英语：Charles Lamb，1775年2月10日—1834年12月27日），英国作家。

其父是律师的书记员。在校时成绩优良，本来打算进入剑桥大学深造，因口吃未能通过大学先修班之考试，15岁即缀学工作。初入南海公司（South Sea House），17岁入东印度茶叶公司（East India Tea House）任簿记员。查尔斯的哥哥约翰早亡，他和姐姐玛丽合写儿童文学作品，1806年，兰姆姐弟开始从莎士比亚戏剧中选择20个最为人们所熟知的，把它们改写成叙事体的散文。查尔斯·兰姆改写其中六个悲剧，即《李尔王》、《麦克白》、《雅典的太门》、《罗密欧与朱丽叶》、《哈姆莱特》和《奥瑟罗》。其中十四部喜剧均由姐姐玛丽所改写，这部书即是后来著名的《莎士比亚戏剧故事集》。

姐姐玛丽因精神上的疾病多次被送进精神病院，1796年9月玛丽忽然精神疾病发作，用厨房里的刀误杀了亲生母亲。查尔斯为此照顾姐姐达四十年之久，终生未娶。1825年查尔斯自东印度茶叶公司退休，工作达33年之久。查尔斯的作品都透露出自身痛苦与哀愁，青年时热恋一少女Ann Simmons, 最后不愿拖累她而放弃追求。查尔斯自己也曾精神失常。1834年卒于埃德蒙顿。

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 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".

Youth and schooling

Lamb was born in London, the son of John Lamb (c. 1725 – 1799) and Elizabeth (née Field, died 1796). Lamb had an elder brother, also John, and a sister, Mary. Four other siblings did not survive infancy. Their father, John Lamb Sr. 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 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 the house seemed 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 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 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, 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.