Background
Richard Barham was born at Canterbury on the 6th of December 1788. At seven years of age he lost his father, who left him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, so frequently mentioned in the Legends.
(Excerpt from The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Har...)
Excerpt from The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham, Author of the Ingoldsby Legends, Vol. 2 of 2: With a Selection From His Miscellaneous Poem Divinity lecturesiiip AT st. Paul's - senior cardinal - exchange OF livings testimonial - the bishop OF london's charge - AN unlucky present - letter TO dr. Hume - ~anecdotes - letter TO miss barham To dr. Hume - lines ON A china jug - the carter ghost story - the seaforth prophecy - 4warrender ikhbe - anecdote - letter TO 3mm bentley - withdrawal from bentley's miscellany - letter TO mrs. Hughes - 'lapsus linguje' - theatrical anecdote - dr. Paris's ghost story - letter To mrs. Hughes - st. Paul's - saunders and otley letter To mrs. Hume - sydney smith's novel - anecdotes - me. Offor and the duke OF sussex - letter TO dr. Hume - note from sydney smith - sheridan and o'beirne the arcii.lological association letter tombs. Hughes - 'archjeological hint' - the mummy - story OE lord H. - scraps, anecdotes, etc. I 37. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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( With eighty-eight distinct editions and some 450,000 li...)
With eighty-eight distinct editions and some 450,000 licensed copies in print, The Ingoldsby Legends of Richard Harris Barham (writing as Thomas Ingoldsby) was among the most beloved and most quoted works of nineteenth-century English literature. Long out of print, it is now available in a fully annotated two-volume edition, complete with over a hundred illustrations by John Tenniel, George Cruikshank, George Du Maurier, John Leech, Arthur Rackham and others. For inexhaustible fun that never gets flat and scarcely ever simply uproarious, for a facility and felicity in rhyme and rhythm which is almost miraculous, and for a blending of the grotesque and the terrible ... no one competent to judge and enjoy will ever go to Barham in vain. - George Saintsbury, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature In the growth of English short fiction Barhams work looms larger yet. Many a good story and tale are scattered through the corpus of English fiction prior to the 1830s, but it is not, I think, an exaggeration to claim Barham as the first consistent English writer of the true short story. - Wendall V. Harris, British Short Fiction in the Nineteenth Century Richard Barham was a genuine poet, who exerts a peculiar spell. A man of some property in Kent, a minor canon of St. Pauls Cathedral, an amateur but learned antiquary, he wrote mainly to amuse himself, and his verse has a spontaneity of unexpected rhyming and reckless imagination that makes it different from anybody elses ... Barham was gifted with some special genius which makes his meters and rhyming as catching as music, so that they run in your head after reading. - Edmund Wilson, The Devils and Canon Barham Popular phrases, the most prosaic sentences, the cramped technicalities of legal diction, and snatches of various languages are worked in with an apparent absence of all art or effort; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced, whilst syllables the most intractable find the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of our language. These Legends have often been imitated, but never equalled. - Walter Hamilton, Parodies of the Works of English and American Authors Barham brought exceptional qualities to the development of his particular art. He was a wit, and his initial success was won by his startling originality. Not only did he adapt the Gallic spirit and conte to the exigencies of the English language: his blending of saints and demons, ghosts and abbots, monkish legend and romance, antiquarian lore and classical knowledge, murder and crime, with his own freakish and whimsical sense of humour, his lightning leaps from grave to gay, his quaint verbal quips, his wealth of topical allusion and most bizarre rhymes - all combined to secure him immediate attention and resultant fame. - Stewart Marsh Ellis, Mainly Victorian
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( With eighty-eight distinct editions and some 450,000 li...)
With eighty-eight distinct editions and some 450,000 licensed copies in print, The Ingoldsby Legends of Richard Harris Barham (writing as Thomas Ingoldsby) was among the most beloved and most quoted works of nineteenth-century English literature. Long out of print, it is now available in a fully annotated two-volume edition, complete with over a hundred illustrations by John Tenniel, George Cruikshank, George Du Maurier, John Leech, Arthur Rackham and others. For inexhaustible fun that never gets flat and scarcely ever simply uproarious, for a facility and felicity in rhyme and rhythm which is almost miraculous, and for a blending of the grotesque and the terrible . no one competent to judge and enjoy will ever go to Barham in vain. - George Saintsbury, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature In the growth of English short fiction Barhams work looms larger yet. Many a good story and tale are scattered through the corpus of English fiction prior to the 1830s, but it is not, I think, an exaggeration to claim Barham as the first consistent English writer of the true short story. - Wendall V. Harris, British Short Fiction in the Nineteenth Century Richard Barham was a genuine poet, who exerts a peculiar spell. A man of some property in Kent, a minor canon of St. Pauls Cathedral, an amateur but learned antiquary, he wrote mainly to amuse himself, and his verse has a spontaneity of unexpected rhyming and reckless imagination that makes it different from anybody elses . Barham was gifted with some special genius which makes his meters and rhyming as catching as music, so that they run in your head after reading. - Edmund Wilson, The Devils and Canon Barham Popular phrases, the most prosaic sentences, the cramped technicalities of legal diction, and snatches of various languages are worked in with an apparent absence of all art or effort; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced, whilst syllables the most intractable find the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of our language. These Legends have often been imitated, but never equalled. - Walter Hamilton, Parodies of the Works of English and American Authors Barham brought exceptional qualities to the development of his particular art. He was a wit, and his initial success was won by his startling originality. Not only did he adapt the Gallic spirit and conte to the exigencies of the English language: his blending of saints and demons, ghosts and abbots, monkish legend and romance, antiquarian lore and classical knowledge, murder and crime, with his own freakish and whimsical sense of humour, his lightning leaps from grave to gay, his quaint verbal quips, his wealth of topical allusion and most bizarre rhymes - all combined to secure him immediate attention and resultant fame. - Stewart Marsh Ellis, Mainly Victorian
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(Excerpt from My Cousin Nicholas Now this is precisely yo...)
Excerpt from My Cousin Nicholas Now this is precisely your case. But for a much respected relative Of yours, once removed, my Cousin Nicholas had never shown his unblushing face to the sun. TO her, then, should the responsibility, de jure, attach In the primary degree, - but the Age of Chivalry is not gone, let Mr. Burke not the deaf gentleman say What he Will. On your excellent Governor I dare not let it devolve were I so to commit myself, he might. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(Mr. Thomas Hughes, M.P. They consist of letters addressed...)
Mr. Thomas Hughes, M.P. They consist of letters addressed to his grandmother, one of my fathers best friends, at whose suggestion I may almost say at whose desire the original memoir was compiled. As will be seen, lapse of time has enabled me in most cases to dispense with the awkward veil aflforded by the use of initials, and to admit anecdotes which could hardly with propriety have been presented before. If some of the stories here retained have grown at all threadbare, it is to be observed that the first edition of the book appeared not less than four-and-twenty years ago, and that large portions of it have been from time to time transferred to the pages of subsequent publications, frequently without acknowledgment, by the literary collectors of imconsidered trifles. With respect to the Poems placed at the end of the second volume, and which have not hitherto been acknowledged, they have been included by the wish of Jlr. Bentley, to whose judgment in such matters I feel bound to defer. They are all of earlier date than the Legends, and will serve, at all events, to show the gradual development of the authors style. E. H. D. Barham. (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org
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Richard Barham was born at Canterbury on the 6th of December 1788. At seven years of age he lost his father, who left him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, so frequently mentioned in the Legends.
At nine Barham was sent to St Paul's school, but his studies were interrupted by an accident which shattered his arm and partially crippled it for life. Thus deprived of the power of bodily activity, he became a great reader and diligent student. In 1807 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, intending at first to study for the profession of the law. Circumstances, however, induced him to change his mind and to enter the church.
In 1813 Barham was ordained and took a country curacy. In 1821 removed to London on obtaining the appointment of minor canon of St Paul's cathedral. Three years later he became one of the priests in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal, and was appointed to a city living. In 1826 he first contributed to Blackwood's Magazine; and on the establishment of Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 he began to furnish the series of grotesque metrical tales known as The Ingoldsby Legends. Beneath their obvious popular quality there lies a store of solid antiquarian learning, the fruit of patient enthusiastic research, in out-of-the-way old books, which few readers who laugh over his pages detect.
Theodore Hook was one of his most intimate friends.
Barham was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review and the Literary Gazette; he wrote articles for Gorton's Biographical Dictionary, and a novel, My Cousin Nicholas (1834). He retained vigour and freshness of heart and mind to the last, and his last verses ("As I laye a-thynkynge") show no signs of decay. He died in London after a long, painful illness, on the 17th of June 1845. A short memoir, by his son, was prefixed to a new edition of Ingoldsby in 1847, and a fuller Life and Letters, from the same hand, was published in 2 vols. in 1870.
( With eighty-eight distinct editions and some 450,000 li...)
( With eighty-eight distinct editions and some 450,000 li...)
(Excerpt from My Cousin Nicholas Now this is precisely yo...)
(Excerpt from The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Har...)
(Mr. Thomas Hughes, M.P. They consist of letters addressed...)
In politics he was a Tory of the old school; yet he was the lifelong friend of the liberal Sydney Smith, whom in many respects he singularly resembled.
His life was grave, dignified and highly honoured. His sound judgment and his kind heart made him the trusted counsellor, the valued friend and the frequent peacemaker; and he was intolerant of all that was mean and base and false.
Barham married in 1814.