Charles and Mary Lamb: Elia and Beyond
Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, King’s Manor, University of York, Saturday 18th June 2022, 9.30-5
Before Covid struck we had planned to host a day conference to mark the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Charles Lamb’s Elia essays in the London Magazine. Now that we are finally able to convene in person, we want to expand the focus of this event ‘beyond’ Elia and showcase recent research on the miscellaneous work of the siblings Charles and Mary Lamb, influentially discussed by Jane Aaron and others in terms of their ‘double singleness’. Contributors to the symposium will include Gregory Dart, John Gardner, Felicity James, Jessica Lim, Samantha Matthews, Tim Milnes, Jane Moore, Gillian Russell, Matt Sangster, and John Strachan, and among the topics that they will address are the Lambs and Romantic authorship, the Lambs and London, their writing for children (including Charles Lamb’s abolitionist efforts), their varied afterlives, tribute poems to Mary Lamb, Charles Lamb and the essay form, his politics, and his engagement with the wider world. Several of our speakers are currently collaborating on the upcoming Oxford University Press Collected Edition of the Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, and our conference will conclude with a round-table at which they will present some of their work to date and reflect on the state of the field of Lamb studies.
The cost of registration is £25 (free to students/ the unwaged), which is payable on the day, although for tea/ coffee ordering purposes please register in advance with Megan Russell at cecs1@york.ac.uk. Thanks to the generosity of the Charles Lamb Society we are able to offer a small number of travel bursaries to UK-based PG students wishing to attend – any questions about this or anything else, email jim.watt@york.ac.uk