On 20 July 1819, at age 44, Lamb, who, because of family commitments, had never married, fell in love with an actress, Fanny Kelly, of Covent Garden, and besides writing her a sonnet he also proposed marriage. She refused him, and he died a bachelor.

Essays of Elia is a collection of essays written by Charles Lamb; it was first published in book form in 1823, with a second volume, Last Essays of Elia, issued in 1833 by the publisher Edward Moxon. The essays in the collection first began appearing in The London Magazine in 1820 and continued to 1825.

Using the pen-name 'Elia', Lamb wrote on various historical and topical subjects with nostalgia, warmth and humorous intelligence and his collected Essays of Elia (1823) was a huge success.

26.9 Lamb's prose style is highly personal and mannered. His essays invoke humour and pathos, old connections; they also recollect scenes from childhood and from later life, and they pamper the author's sense of playfulness and fancy. He was as romantic in his writings as William Wordsworth or Coleridge.