The critic, essayist and painter William Hazlitt (1778 1830) published and lectured widely on English literature, from Elizabethan drama to reviews of the latest work of his own time. His first extended work of literary criticism was Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, published in 1817. This volume from 1908 takes the text of the first edition and adds notes explaining complex terms to readers and an introduction by J. H. Lobban, a lecturer in English at Birkbeck College. As such it is the ideal introduction to Hazlitt's criticism. Hazlitt's political view of Shakespeare drew the ire of the Tory Quarterly review, whose hostile review destroyed sales of the second edition. The work remains of value, however, both as a contribution to the study of Shakespeare and, as with all of Hazlitt's prose, as a model of an elegant, persuasive essay.

Originally published in 1909, this book contains a selection of essays by the English man of letters and politician Joseph Addison (1672-1719). The essays were selected from The Spectator, the magazine founded by Addison and Richard Steele, which ran from 1711 to 1712. An editorial introduction is included, along with notes. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the writings of Addison and The Spectator.

Originally published in 1910, this book contains the text of fifty poems written by Tennyson between 1830 and 1864, including famous pieces 'The Lady of Shalott' and 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. Lobban includes an introduction on Tennyson's reputation as a poet, as well as detailed commentary on each poem. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Tennyson or nineteenth-century poetry more generally.

Originally published in 1913, this edition of Fielding's Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon contains the complete text of the Journal together with an introduction and notes. The Journal provides a brief record of Fielding's journey of seven weeks between Rotherhithe and Lisbon, in search of a cure for his deteriorating health. Fielding died in Lisbon during 1754 and the work was first published shortly after his death. It is a unique and fascinating document created at a late stage in the author's life, which will be of value to anyone with an interest in eighteenth-century literature and travel writing.

Oliver Goldsmith, described in a eulogy written by Dr. Johnson as 'a poet, naturalist, and historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched', became one of the great figures of the eighteenth-century literary scene. A character as absurd as he was talented, Goldsmith was best known for his novels, poems and plays, such as The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771). Yet Goldsmith also composed a number of excellent essays. As this volume's editor J. H. Lobban argues, 'there is not a single feature of [The Vicar of Wakefield's] style that you will not find ... in his essays'. This volume, originally published in 1910, brings together thirty-two of the Anglo-Irish writer's critical essays, with an aim to illustrate the variety and vibrancy of his prose. These essays are not only characterised by their beauty and lucidity, but by the creative genius of their composer.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PARISIAN SCENES A TALE OF TWO CITIES I THE WINE-SHOP A Large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women's heads, which were squeezed dry into infants' mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the L. p. s. l wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices? voices o...

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was a prolific, versatile and engaging writer. He outlived many of the poets and essayists of his generation whose reputations overshadowed his, but Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats all owed a debt to his advocacy, as did Tennyson and Browning. A poet of charm and technical skill, and an able translator and playwright, Leigh Hunt excelled as an essayist, literary critic and letter writer. His concern was always, in the words of his son, to 'open more widely the door of the library', to share his literary enthusiasms and extend his readers' tastes. This anthology draws on the full range of Hunt's poetry and prose, revealing a writer committed to the humane and civilizing powers of literature and friendship.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was a prolific, versatile and engaging writer. He outlived many of the poets and essayists of his generation whose reputations overshadowed his, but Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats all owed a debt to his advocacy, as did Tennyson and Browning. A poet of charm and technical skill, and an able translator and playwright, Leigh Hunt excelled as an essayist, literary critic and letter writer. His concern was always, in the words of his son, to 'open more widely the door of the library', to share his literary enthusiasms and extend his readers' tastes. This anthology draws on the full range of Hunt's poetry and prose, revealing a writer committed to the humane and civilizing powers of literature and friendship.