"WHAT IS READING, BUT SILENT CONVERSATION"

LAMB, Charles. The Works of Charles Lamb. London: Edward Moxon, 1850. Four volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter tan morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt. $750.

Later edition of Lamb’s works, including his essays, poems, plays, and correspondence (edited by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd), with frontispiece portrait engraved by Finden in Volume I, handsomely bound by Zaehnsdorf.

"No figure in literature is better known to us than Lamb. His writings, prose and verse, are full of personal revelations… He numbered among his earliest friends Coleridge, Southey, [and] Wordsworth… No man was ever more loved by a wide and varied class of friends" (DNB). While Lamb was admired by many for his literary efforts, he received little recognition during his lifetime. Whenever a work was received poorly, he would suffer periods of self-doubt and would ignore all matters literary. First collected in 1818, Lamb's works tended to elicit highly polarized critical reactions— although his "Elia" essays (included here) have been celebrated continually since their first appearance for their witty and ironic treatment of everyday subjects. His correspondence, including letters to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and William Hazlitt, was first published by Thomas Talfourd, Lamb's executor, in 1837.

A handsome set in fine condition.