Richard Harris Barham, divinity lecturer and minor canon at St. Paul's Cathedral, is known for a series of tales that appeared serially under his pseudonym, Thomas Ingoldsby, from 1831 until his death in 1845. The first collection of the tales was published in 1840 as The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Marvels, with a second series following in 1842; Barham's son, Richard Harris Dalton Barham, collected and published a third series in 1847. Many reprints and editions of The Ingoldsby Legends have appeared since then.

Richard Harris Barham was born in Canterbury on 6 December 1788 to Richard Harris Barham, an alderman who had inherited substantial land holdings south of Canterbury, and Elizabeth Fox, the elder Barham's housekeeper. The Barhams claimed to be able to trace their Kentish roots back to the eleventh century. The family seat, Tappington Everard, between Folkestone and Canterbury, is frequently mentioned in The Ingoldsby Legends. Barham's father died in 1795; his...