SOURCE: Jump, Harriet. “‘Snatch'd Out of the Fire’: Lamb, Coleridge, and George Dyer's Cancelled Preface.” Charles Lamb Bulletin 58 (April 1987): 54-66.

In the following excerpt, originally presented as a lecture on March 1, 1986, Jump speaks in detail about the fate and revisions of Dyer's cancelled preface, using the perspective of Lamb's and Coleridge's amused and critical comments.

Born in Wapping, the son of a watchman, in 1755, Dyer was twenty years older than Lamb, seventeen years older than Coleridge. In other words, he belonged to an earlier generation—a fact which becomes obvious when one starts to examine the style of his poetry and the tenor of his literary criticism, both of which are firmly rooted in the eighteenth century. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Emmanuel College Cambridge. After his graduation in 1778, he worked as an usher at Dedham and later Northampton Grammar Schools, and also for a period...