THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB EDITED BY E. V. LUCAS I. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 1798-1834 II. ELIA AND THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA III. BOOKS FOR CHILDREN IV. DRAMATIC SPECIMENS AND THE GARRICK PLAYS V. POEMS AND PLAYS VI. AND VII. LETTERS THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB. By E. V. LUCAS Two VOLUMES. DEMY 8VO. [In Preparation GENERAL INTRODUCTION 'HIS edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's writings, of which ΤΗΙ the present volume is the first, differs from others in several respects. It is the first to include a considerable number of essays and poems hitherto unidentified or uncollected -some sixty pages in all; it is the first to include the Dramatic Specimens and Garrick Extracts; and when the volumes containing the Letters are reached, they will be found to contain, in addition to other new letters, a fuller share of Mary Lamb's correspondence than has previously been considered needful. The system of arrangement is also fresh, and in annotation a severer standard of thoroughness than other editors have thought necessary has been adopted. To many readers, indeed, the first two volumes, at any rate, of this edition may seem to be annotated too fully; but there will probably be a far greater number who will be pleased to find so many allusions accounted for; and in these matters it is, I think, for the majority that an editor should work. The principle of annotation which I set before myself was not only to explain references and to trace quotations, but to show, wherever it was possible to do so, the place in Lamb's life of each essay and poem, and their relation to each other. Lamb's writings, especially as he grew older, being so curiously drawn from his own experience, it follows that the notes to his essays and poemsthat is to say, to what may be called the autobiographical volumes of this edition-constitute in the mass what is practically a history of the life and times of Lamb and many of his friends, although, of course, an irregular and broken one. With regard to his quotations, it is partly for the interesting light thrown by them on Lamb's reading that I have felt it important to |