Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles and Mary Lamb to Edward Moxon, [26 September 1833]
[p.m. Sept. 26, 1833.]
Thursday.
WE shall be most happy to see Emma, dear to every body. Mary’s spirits are much better, and she
longs to see again our twelve years’ friend. You shall afternoon sip with
me a bottle of superexcellent Port, after deducting a dinner-glass for them. We
rejoyce to have E. come, the first
Visit, without Miss ——, who, I trust, will yet
behave well; but she might perplex Mary with questions.
Pindar sadly wants
Preface and notes. Pray, E., get to Snow
Hill before 12, for we dine before 2. We will make it 2. By mistake I gave you
Miss Betham’s letter, with the
exquisite verses, which pray return to me, or if it be an improved copy, give
me the other, and Albumize mine, keeping the signature. It is too pretty a
family portrait, for you not to cherish.
Your loving friends
C. Lamb.
M. Lamb.
Mary Matilda Betham (1777-1852)
English poet and miniature painter and friend of Southey, Coleridge and the Lambs. She
was the elder sister of the antiquary Sir William Betham.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
Edward Moxon (1801-1858)
Poet and bookseller; after employment at Longman and Company he set up in 1830 with
financial assistance from Samuel Rogers and became the leading publisher of literary
poetry.
Emma Lamb Moxon [née Isola] (1809-1891)
The orphaned daughter of Charles Isola adopted by Charles and Mary Lamb; after working as
a governess she married Edward Moxon in 1833.
