The Plain Speaker

Name: The Plain Speaker
Author: William Hazlitt

by William Hazlitt

Essays defending honest plain-speaking against pretension, hypocrisy, and fashionable cant

Find on Amazon

About the author

William Hazlitt

English essayist and critic who brought personal passion and radical politics to literary criticism. On the Pleasures of Hating and The Spirit of the Age are among the finest English essays. He is the first great English critic to write from an explicitly personal, impressionistic standpoint.

More by William Hazlitt

The Spirit of the AgeEssays on Hazlitt's Romantic contemporaries—Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth—analyzing their genius and influence
Table TalkCollection of Hazlitt's casual essays on literature, philosophy, politics, and everyday life
Liber AmorisHazlitt's autobiographical novella documenting his obsessive, unrequited passion for a young woman
Characters of Shakespeare's PlaysHazlitt's detailed critical examination of Shakespeare's characters and dramatic construction
Lectures on the English PoetsHazlitt's lectures on English poetry from Chaucer onward, analyzing the poetic genius of major figures