Poetry for Children by Charles and Mary Lamb opens as a tender, illustrated treasury of simple verse shaped by affection for childhood, Shakespeare, and the moral beauty of ordinary life. Framed by memories of Christ's Hospital, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, the collection recalls the literary circle that nurtured the Lambs' humane imagination and their rare gift for writing for young readers. Within its pages, short poems and fables move easily between play and instruction. Rainbows, the first tooth, the skylark, and a lesson in the Lord's Prayer sit beside meditations on cleanliness, vanity, memory, and repentance. Domestic scenes of siblings, mothers, dolls, and growing children are balanced by darker pieces on drowning, cruelty, and loss, while animal tales of magpies, rooks, sparrows, snakes, and caged beasts expose pride, imitation, and hidden danger. The collection also includes biblical and historical echoes, from David's longing for water to Salome's murderous vanity. Warm, accessible, and quietly searching, these poems offer children delight while inviting adults into their deeper compassion, discipline, and wisdom. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Lamb, Charles

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) was an English essayist, poet, and critic whose gentle wit and humane sensibility made him one of the most beloved voices of the Romantic era. Born in London and educated at Christ’s Hospital, he spent much of his life working in the East India Company, a steady post that supported his writing while keeping him close to the everyday world he so keenly observed. His life was marked by both literary companionship and private sorrow, especially the long burden of caring for his sister Mary, whose struggles deeply shaped his emotional life and writing. Lamb’s greatest achievements lie in his essays and reflections, where he transformed memory, conversation, childhood, and ordinary experience into art of rare intimacy and charm. He wrote with warmth, irony, and a tender eye for human weakness, often exploring themes of nostalgia, family, imagination, loss, and the bittersweet passage of time. These concerns still feel strikingly modern, especially for readers drawn to writing that finds dignity in small lives and complexity in everyday feeling. His work remains significant because it helped define the personal essay as a literary form and showed how humor and melancholy can coexist in the same voice. Today, Lamb endures as a writer who makes the familiar seem newly alive, and he will especially appeal to readers who enjoy reflective prose, literary history, and affectionate, quietly wise observations about life.