Barham, Richard Harris

Related Category: English Literature, 19th cent.: Biographies

(bär´əm), pseud. Thomas Ingoldsby(ĭng´gəlzbē), 1788–1845, English humorist, grad. Oxford. Ordained a minister in 1813, he became a minor canon of the Chapel Royal in 1824. In 1837 he began in Bentley's Miscellany, under his pseudonym, a series of parodies of country superstitions, medieval legends, and contemporary foibles. Barham had a lively invention, a gift of creating suspense, and an unusually discerning sense of the ludicrous. The Ingoldsby Legends were first published in book form in 1840.