SOURCE: Peal, W. Hugh. “In Search of Charles Lamb.” The Kentucky Review 6, no. 2 (summer 1986): 3-23.

In the following essay, Peal presents an overview of Lamb's life and literary career by detailing numerous manuscripts and letters from his personal collection of Lamb's writings.

The search for Charles Lamb began in my case, as so many searches do, as the result of a gift. The gift was a copy of Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, and the giver was an aunt who believed that little boys should be introduced to good literature at the earliest and most impressionable ages. The gift was not one which could be classified as a collector's item. It was a small oblong volume bound in green cloth with cheap iridescent decoration. The paper was cheap, and the printing would not have been approved by Didot or Baskerville. It was, however, the best...