Thank you for talking about him. About a year ago I made an oath: that I would read Hazlitt every day (without fail) until the day I die. Not as an exercise in discipline or education, but because his prose delights, and because it floats lightly over immense fathoms of learning. And because he loved and understood our Shakespeare better than anyone else. (RIP William, the time will surely come when your genius will be universally recognised. It may take centuries……..as with Emily Dickinson).
I read his Liber Amoris (a very sad epistolary novel) last year and a few of his essays collected in a newer and slim Penguin Great Ideas volume ("On the Pleasure of Hating [& other essays]"); loved the essays, but rarely see him in bookstores. I will continue to keep eyes peeled!
Every time you've piqued my interest with an author I'm not familiar with, I've taken your advice and gone to the wikipedia page on the author and see if the writer is worth following up on. Hazlitt has become so obscure, I can't remember even reading of a passing mention of him. A great many authors, I could at least summon up a precis of what they were about.
Thank you for talking about him. About a year ago I made an oath: that I would read Hazlitt every day (without fail) until the day I die. Not as an exercise in discipline or education, but because his prose delights, and because it floats lightly over immense fathoms of learning. And because he loved and understood our Shakespeare better than anyone else. (RIP William, the time will surely come when your genius will be universally recognised. It may take centuries……..as with Emily Dickinson).
There are two Oxford World’s Classics selections of his work if someone’s interested.
Blythe is still alive, and at a youthful 97.
I read his Liber Amoris (a very sad epistolary novel) last year and a few of his essays collected in a newer and slim Penguin Great Ideas volume ("On the Pleasure of Hating [& other essays]"); loved the essays, but rarely see him in bookstores. I will continue to keep eyes peeled!
Having heard of, but never having read any of his writings I’ll be looking into the availability online. Thanks Steve!
Who else would be on the row-boat!?
He sounds interesting! I have never heard of him before now, but i will have to keep my eyes open in the future!
There’s a much bigger Penguin volume available in the UK that I’d love to get my hands on. “The Fight and Other Writings”
Every time you've piqued my interest with an author I'm not familiar with, I've taken your advice and gone to the wikipedia page on the author and see if the writer is worth following up on. Hazlitt has become so obscure, I can't remember even reading of a passing mention of him. A great many authors, I could at least summon up a precis of what they were about.
I think Harold Bloom talked about him a bit.
@@tripp8833 Simon Schama, Jonathan Bate and Virginia Woolf too.