Welcome to my Hazlitt pages!
William Hazlitt
1778-1830
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philosophy: Philosophy.
William Hazlitt was English and lived
from 1778-1830. He is best known as an essayist. He was a highly
original and individual man, with original ideas on philosophy and a
beautiful style.
He is not by far as well-known as he
deserves to be, probably because he failed to please and felt pleased
to hate too many and too much. This was mostly due to his honesty,
courage, and brightness of intellect, and the obvious all-too-human
failings of his fellows.
At present, there are just nine of
his essays on my site - see the left pane - and these are not
annotated fully by me, but I plan to add many more, with my
annotations, simply because Hazlitt had a very fine mind and a very
beautiful style.
There are some good editions of
Hazlitt, but I do not know whether these are in print
- Selected Essays of William
Hazlitt
Edited by Geoffry Keynes
First ed. 1930 - London The Nonesuch Press
- Table Talk
The Plain Speaker
Lectures on the English Poets and Spirit of the Age
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
All in Everyman's Library
- William Hazlitt - Selected
Writings
Edited by Ronald Blythe
Penguin Books
Each and all of these give a fine
selection of Hazlitt's essays. The first is the longest and the best
introduction to Hazlitt, but probably only available in antiquarian
bookshops.
There are several biographies by him
of which P.P. Howe's, who also edited his collected works, is probably
still the best. This also was published by Penguin and also probably
is only available in antiquarian bookshops.