difficulties faced by charles lamb in his life
Answers
He suffered from stutter problem all his life, which disqualified him from a clerical career. After a short stint in the office of a London merchant Joseph Paice, he joined the Examiner's Office of the South Sea House where he served in a small post till February 8, 1792.
On April 5, 1792, he joined the ‘East India House’ which was the headquarters of ‘East India Company’, as a clerk in its Account’s Office. He served the company for over three decades till his retirement in 1825.
Charles became heavily addicted to alcohol. Once in 1795, he had to stay in an asylum for six weeks.
On September 22, 1796, his elder sister Mary in a fit of rage stabbed and killed their mother Elizabeth. A subsequent investigation revealed Mary to be suffering from temporary mental illness. Mary’s custody was given to Charles Lamb.
Lamb and his sister led an active social life with some of the notable literary and theatrical personalities around. Coleridge was a close childhood friend and later Lamb befriended William Wordsworth, both of them remained his friends for life.
He became acquainted with many young writers in London like Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, and Percy Bysshe Shelley who advocated political reform.
On April 16, 1796, his first literary work came out in the first volume of ‘Poems on Various Subjects’ published by Coleridge that contained four poems of Lamb.
In 1798 his romantic prose ‘A Tale of Rosamund’ was published. In the same year his works were published along with that of Charles Lloyd in the book ‘Black Verse’.
After his father’s demise in 1799, Mary shifted with Charles for good. However her insanity proved to be recurrent in nature and she had to visit the asylum many a times.