Samuel Laman Blanchard
Samuel Laman Blanchard (15 May 1804 – 15 February 1845) was a British author and journalist.
Life
The son of a painter and glazier, he was born at Great Yarmouth. He was educated at St Olave's school, Southwark, and then became clerk to a proctor in Doctors' Commons. At an early age he developed an interest in literature, contributing dramatic sketches to a paper called Drama. For a short time he belonged to a travelling theatre company, but then became a proof-reader in London, and wrote for the Monthly Magazine. In 1827 he was made secretary of the Zoological Society, a post he held for three years.
Over-work broke down his strength and, after his wife died in December 1844 of a painful illness, Blanchard entered a depression from which he never recovered. He committed suicide with a razor, and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
Works
In 1828 he published Lyric Offerings, dedicated to Charles Lamb. He had a very varied journalistic experience, editing in succession the Monthly Magazine, the True Sun, the Constitutional, the Court Journal, the Courier, and George Cruikshank's Omnibus; and from 1841 till his death he was connected with the Examiner.
In 1846 Edward Bulwer-Lytton collected some of his prose-essays under the title Sketches of Life, to which a memoir of the author was prefixed. His verse was collected in 1876 by William Blanchard Jerrold.
Family
His eldest son was Sidney Laman Blanchard, the author of Yesterday and To-day in India.
References
Further reading
- West Norwood Cemetery The Dickens Connection', Friends of West Norwood Cemetery, 1995
External links
- Lee, Sidney (1886). . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 194-95.
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