Barham, Richard Harris (1788–1845)

English writer. He was the author of verse tales of the supernatural and of black comedy. The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby were collected in book form 1840 and 1847; their high spirits, amazing rhymes, and inexhaustible humour account for their lasting popularity.

Barham was born in Canterbury and educated at Oxford. He was ordained 1813, became a minor canon of St Paul's 1821, and a priest-in-ordinary to the Chapels Royal with a city living 1824. In 1837 he contributed the first of his numerous tales in verse to the literary periodical Bentley's Miscellany.