William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

Romanticism is where the modern age begins, and Hazlitt was its most articulate spokesman. No one else had the ability to see it whole; no one else knew so many of its politicians, poets, and philosophers. By interpreting it for his contemporaries, he speaks to us of ourselves - of the culture and world we now inhabit. Perhaps the most important development of his time, the creation of a mass media, is one that now dominates our lives. Hazlitt's livelihoo was dependent on it. As the biography argues, he took political sketch-writing to a new level, invented sports commentary as we know it, and created the essay-form as practised by Clive James, Gore Vidal, and Michael Foot. Duncan Wu's profile of one of the greatest journalists in the language draws on over a decade of archival research in libraries across Britain and North America, to reveal for the first time such matters as why Godwin broke with Hazlitt; how Hazlitt came to know Sir John Soane and J. M. W. Turner; the true nature of Hazlitt's dealings with Thomas Medwin, and what the likes of Joseph Farington and Sir Thomas Lawrence thought of him. In addition, it sheds new light on Hazlitt's dealings with such figures as Francis Jeffrey, Robert Stodart, John M'Creery, Henry Crabb Robinson, Joseph Parkes, John Cam Hobhouse, and Stendhal. It benefits also from Wu's New Writings of William Hazlitt, many of which make their appearance here, illuminating hitherto obscure passages of Hazlitt's life.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

The 205 new writings by William Hazlitt collected for the first time in this volume provide a fuller picture than has hitherto been available of his career as journalist, particularly his work for the Morning Chronicle, The Times and The Atlas. Newly discovered works include major essays on the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, a defence of Byron and Shelley against charges of immorality, an analysis of the three trials of the Regency publisher and writer William Hone, and a series of reminiscences and anecdotes from Hazlitt's last years. In addition, there are important essays on Napoleon, the Vienna Congress, and on Southey's appointment as Poet Laureate; notices of Edmund Kean, Dora Jordan and Fanny Kemble; reviews of Coleridge's Christabel, Byron's Sardanapalus and Hunt's Rimini; and essays on the fine arts, including exhibitions at the British Institution. Duncan Wu has surveyed all the publications for which Hazlitt wrote, as well as many for which he didn't, to find these neglected works. Each one is edited from its original printed source, prefaced with a detailed explanation of its attribution, and annotations providing information necessary to a full understanding of context and content. The volume also provides a partial bibliography of Hazlitt's journalism.