"C.L.
"N.B.—No Preface."
The "sort of Preface in the next number" was the character sketch of the late Elia on page 171.
Elia did not reach a second edition in Lamb's lifetime—that is to say, during a period of twelve years—although the editions into which it has passed between his death and the present day are legion. Why, considering the popularity of the essays as they appeared in the London Magazine, the book should have found so few purchasers is a problem difficult of solution. Lamb himself seems to have attributed some of the cause to Southey's objection, in the Quarterly Review, that Elia "wanted a sounder religious feeling;" but more probably the book was too dear: it was published at 9s. 6d.
Ordinary reviewers do not seem to have perceived at all that a rare humorist, humanist and master of prose had arisen, although among the finer intellects who had any inclination to search for excellence for excellence's sake Lamb made his way. William Hazlitt, for example, drew attention to the rich quality of Elia; as also did Leigh Hunt; and William Hone, who cannot, however, as a critic be mentioned with these, was tireless in advocating the book. Among strangers to Lamb who from the first extolled his genius was Miss Mitford. But Elia did not sell.
Ten years passed before Lamb collected his essays again, and then in 1833 was published The Last Essays of Elia, with Edward Moxon's imprint. The mass of minor essays in the London Magazine and elsewhere, which Lamb disregarded when he compiled his two collections, will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition. The Last Essays of Elia had little, if any, better reception than the first; and Lamb had the mortification of being asked by the Norris family to suppress the exquisite and kindly little memoir of Randal Norris, entitled "A Death-Bed" (see page 279), which was held to be too personal. When, in 1835, after Lamb's death, a new edition of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia was issued, the "Confessions of a Drunkard" took its place (see Vol. I.).
Meanwhile a Philadelphian firm had been beforehand with Lamb, and had issued in 1828 a second series of Elia. The American edition of Elia had been the same as the English except for a slightly different arrangement of the essays. But when in 1828 the American second series was issued, it was found to contain three pieces not by Lamb at all. A trick of writing superficially like Lamb had been growing in the London Magazine ever since the beginning; hence the confusion of the American editor. The three articles not by Lamb, as he pointed out to N.P. Willis (see Pencillings by the Way), are "Twelfth Night," "The Nuns and Ale of Caverswell," and "Valentine's Day." Of these Allan Cunningham wrote the second, and B.W. Procter (Barry Cornwall) the other two. The volume contained only eleven essays which Lamb himself selected for The Last Essays of Elia: it was eked out with the three spurious pieces above referred to, with several pieces never collected by Lamb, and with four of the humorous articles in the Works, 1818. Bernard Barton's sonnet "To Elia" stood as introduction. Altogether it was a very interesting book, as books lacking authority often are.
In the notes that follow reference is often made to Lamb's Key. This is a paper explaining certain initials and blanks in Elia, which Lamb drew up for R.B. Pitman, a fellow clerk at the East India House. I give it here in full, merely remarking that the first numerals refer to the pages of the original edition of Elia and those in brackets to the present volume:—
M. . . . Page 13 [7] Maynard, hang'd himself.
G.D. . . " 21 [11] George Dyer, Poet.