William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and
literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of
Samuel Johnson and
George Orwell. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is currently little read and mostly out of print.
During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century
literary canon, including
Charles and
Mary Lamb,
Stendhal,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
William Wordsworth, and
John Keats.
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