Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters.

HAZLITT, William.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 127349

London: Printed for William Hone, 1819.

First edition of one of Hazlitt’s most interesting collections, including his estimates and reviews of Southey as Laureate, of Coleridge, Burke, and Malthus (at length). Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco with gilt titles and ruling to the spine in five compartments within raised bands, marbled endpapers. From the library of William Safire with his bookplate to the pastedown. William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and supported him again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. In very good condition. Small library stamp and ownership stamp.

 

 

 

"With his collected Political Essays Hazlitt ended his activities as controversial journalist. Hazlitt's Preface is characteristically fierce, and the whole book has a strong political flavour" (Keynes). "Though a miscellany of previously published occasional journalism, it nevertheless offers a fine introduction to the sharpness of Hazlitt's prose and the spice of his convictions - his faith in Napoleon, his hatred for Pitt, his uneasy admiration of Burke, his dismay at the apostasy of Coleridge and Southey" (ODNB).