Harvard Classics

Harvard Classics, Vol. 27 English Essays From Sir Philip Sidney to Macaulay Four centuries of the development of English prose are illustrated by 24 works from 17 authors, ranging from those best known for the essay, like Addison and Hazlitt, to those, like Jonson and Coleridge, whose poetic spirit infuses all their writings. to those, like Jonson and Coleridge, whose poetic spirit infuses all their writings.

Sir Philip Sidney

Introductory Note

The Defense of Poesy

Ben Jonson

Introductory Note

On Shakespeare

On Bacon

Abraham Cowley

Introductory Note

Of Agriculture

Joseph Addison

Introductory Note

The Vision of Mirza

Westminster Abbey

Sir Richard Steele

Introductory Note

The Spectator Club

Jonathan Swift

Introductory Note

Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation

A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding

A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet

On the Death of Esther Johnson [Stella]

Daniel Defoe

Introductory Note

The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters

The Education of Women

Samuel Johnson

Introductory Note

Life of Addison, 1672–1719

David Hume

Introductory Note

Of the Standard of Taste

Sydney Smith

Introductory Note

Fallacies of Anti-Reformers

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Introductory Note

On Poesy or Art

William Hazlitt

Introductory Note

Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen

Leigh Hunt

Introductory Note

Deaths of Little Children

On the Realities of Imagination

Charles Lamb

Introductory Note

On the Tragedies of Shakspere

Thomas De Quincey

Introductory Note

Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Introductory Note

A Defence of Poetry

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Introductory Note

Machiavelli