The Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth and Marvels - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham

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P. G. Wodehouse refers to The Ingoldsby Legends in his novel A Prefect's Uncle (1903), comparing his title character to the lady in the earlier work "who didn't mind death, but who couldn't stand pinching".

Sadly Richard Senior died when the young Richard was only seven so the boy was sent off to boarding school at St Paul’s Cathedral. St Paul's Cathedral, London. Picture: John Nurden That said, Barham definitely did shape the first two series of the Legends as coherent collections. (The third series, assembled posthumously from his remaining writings, is far less successful). The first series particularly fair romps along (including some brilliantly funny footnotes), and probably can be read through in its entirety before the sensation begins to pall a bit. So Sir Robert dashed to his stables and had his favourite steed Grey Dolphin saddled up. The horse had been specially trained for swimming out to sea.

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But he realised he would still need a royal pardon. King Edward l (1272 to 1307) was to sail past Sheppey on his royal barge to inspect his navy moored at The Nore which was preparing to go into battle against the French. Richard Harris Barham was born in Canterbury. When he was seven years old his father died, leaving him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, in Denton, Kent, mentioned frequently in his later work The Ingoldsby Legends. At nine he was sent to St Paul's School, but his studies were interrupted by an accident that partly crippled his arm for life. Deprived of vigorous bodily activity, he became a great reader and diligent student. There is a Wetherspoons pub in Burgate, Canterbury, near the cathedral, named The Thomas Ingoldsby. [2] McGivering, John (2008). " "The Dog Hervey" Notes on the text". Readers' Guide. The Kipling Society . Retrieved 6 August 2019. Ngaio Marsh refers to The Ingoldsby Legends in Death in a White Tie. Troy tells about coming across Lord Tomnoddy and the hanging and the "extraordinary impression" it had on her. She also makes references in Surfeit of Lampreys, the second time (Chapter 19 Part 4) with reference to The Hand of Glory. She also makes brief mention of the work in Death and the Dancing Footman.

One evening as Sir Robert quaffed ale and devoured a plate of Faversham oysters he became aware of a commotion. Villagers had discovered the body of a sailor washed up on the beach and were pleading with the priest to bury it. In the growth of English short fiction Barham's 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 In E. Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), the children consult the Ingoldsby Legends when they want to improvise a magic ritual. Barham was a political Tory, yet a lifelong friend of the liberal Sydney Smith and of Theodore Hook. Barham, a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, the Literary Gazette and John Gorton's Biographical Dictionary, also wrote a novel, My Cousin Nicholas (1834). He died in London on 17 June 1845, after a long and painful illness.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 Sarah Grand's 1897 novel The Beth Book, the narrator and main character, Beth, mentions the Ingoldsby Legends as a favourite of her childhood, and recites a passage from "The Execution" that appears in the collection. Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference As a priest of the Chapel Royal, with a private income, [3] Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties, and he had ample time to read, and to compose his stories and poems. Although the "legends" are based on folklore or other pre-existing sources, chiefly Kentish, [4] such as the " hand of glory", they are mostly humorous parodies or pastiches.

Barham introduces the collection with the statement that "The World, according to the best geographers, is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Romney Marsh". [4] During 1807 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, intending at first to study for the law, but deciding on a clerical career instead. In 1813 he was ordained and found a country curacy. He married the next year and in 1821 he gained a minor canonry at London's St. Paul's Cathedral, where he served as a cardinal. [1] Three years later he became one of the priests in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal. The pair swam two miles to the king's ship battling strong tides and wind. Thomas Ingoldsby Legends and the Legend of Grey DolphinIllustration by George Cruikshank for the 'Dead Drummer of Salisbury Plain', one of The Ingoldsby Legends. I came to this through interests both in the legends of Richard Harris Barham's part of the world (Kent) and in the adaptive use of traditional folklore for literary ends. There's actually not so much of the latter as I'd hoped, but the creation of the Ingoldsby family narrator/s as a vehicle for Barham (an extremely witty and learned churchman) is itself an interesting approach, and he owes much more to the 18th century antiquarian traditions than to the emerging folklore investigations of his own day.

Kentish folk band Los Salvadores song "Smugglers' Leap" is based on the story of the same name featured in the Ingoldsby Legends.There is a calm, a holy feeling, Vulgar minds can never know, O'er the bosom softly stealing,— Chasten'd grief, delicious woe! Oh! how sweet at eve regaining Yon lone tower's sequester'd shade— Sadly mute and uncomplaining—" In those days Sheppey was covered in woods and was an ideal hunting ground. Indeed, Henry Vlll is recorded as staying at Shurland Hall with Anne Boleyn. In Henry James's 1888 essay "From London", his stay at Morley's Hotel [ clarification needed] (and the recollection of the four-poster bed) brings to mind "The Ingoldsby Legends", he 'scarce knows why'.