Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays is a collection of fifteen essays by a team of internationally recognized experts specially commissioned to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of Addison's death in 2019. Almost exclusively known now as the inventor and main author of The Spectator, probably the most widely read and imitated prose work of the eighteenth century, Addison also produced important and influential work across a broad gamut of other literary modes—poems, verse translations, literary criticism, periodical journalism, drama, opera, travel writing. Much of this work is little known nowadays even in specialist academic circles; Addison is often described as the most neglected of the eighteenth century's major writers. This volume is the first collection to address the full range and variety of Addison's career and writings. Its fifteen chapters fall into three groupings: the first set study Addison's work in modes other than the literary periodical (poetry, translation, travel writing, drama); the second set address The Spectator from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (literary-critical, sociological and political, bibliographical); and the final set explore Addison's reception within several cultural spheres (philosophy, horticulture, art history), by individual writers or across larger historical periods (the Romantic age, the Victorian age), and in Britain and Europe, especially France. The volume provides an overdue and appropriately diverse memorial to one of the dominant men of letters of the Georgian era.

Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda has been hailed as "the best-read person in America" (The Paris Review) and "the best book critic in America" (The New York Observer). His latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on a life in literature. Reaching from the classics to the post-moderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace. Dirda's topics are equally diverse: literary pets, the lost art of cursive writing, book inscriptions, the pleasures of science fiction conventions, author photographs, novelists in old age, Oberlin College, a year in Marseille, writer's block, and much more. As admirers of his earlier books will expect, there are annotated lists galore—of perfect book titles, great adventure novels, favorite words, books about books, and beloved children's classics, as well as a revealing peek at the titles Michael keeps on his own nightstand.Funny and erudite, Browsings is a celebration of the reading life, a fan's notes, and the perfect gift for any booklover.

Excerpt from Selections From the Writings of Joseph Addison: Edited With Introduction and Notes The text of this volume is precisely that of Tickell's edition of 1721, except for the correction of misprints. Such corrections have been inclosed in square brackets, with references I to the reading which has been displaced and to the sources of the better reading. In these references the original sheets are indicated by S; the first collected editions, by C; Tickell's edition, by T. For assistance in reproducing the title-pages of books in foreign libraries we are indebted to Professor George Pierce Baker, of Harvard University, and to Professor George Rapall Noyes, of the University of California. For indispensable advice and assistance of every sort we are deeply indebted to Professor George Lyman Kittredge, of Harvard University. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.