Page "Charles Lamb" Paragraph 23

From a fairly young age Lamb desired to be a poet but never gained the success that he had hoped.

Lamb lived under the poetic shadow of his friend Coleridge.

In the final years of the 18th century Lamb began to work on prose with the novella entitled Rosamund Gray, a story of a young girl who was thought to be inspired by Ann Simmonds, with whom Charles Lamb was thought to be in love.

Although the story is not particularly successful as a narrative because of Lamb's poor sense of plot, it was well thought of by Lamb's contemporaries and led Shelley to observe “ what a lovely thing is Rosamund Gray!

How much knowledge of the sweetest part of our nature in it!

" ( Quoted in Barnett, page 50 )