Henry Man

Henry Man (1747-99) was born in London to a dissenting family. He was educated at Croydon by the Revd John Lamb. He became a clerk in the city but began to write, publishing a small work titled The Trifler in 1770, a volume of essays. In 1774 he contributed to Woodfall’s Morning Chronicle and in 1775 published Bentley, or, The Rural Philosopher. That same year he published a satire titled Cloacina. He soon obtained a post in the South Sea House, becoming deputy secretary. Here he became acquainted with a young Charles Lamb, who worked there as a teenager in 1791-2. Lamb would later write in praise of Man in The Essays of Elia. Man continued to write for the Morning Gazette until 1799. His works were collected and published, with a ‘Memoir’, in 1802.