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The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison

This volume gathers the literary output of Joseph Addison, one of the most prominent writers of the Augustan Age in English literature. The collection includes the witty and polished essays that made Addison famous through his periodical works, which helped shape the essay as a literary form in English. The compilation features his poetry, ranging from meditative verses to celebratory odes, as well as his dramatic productions, most notably the tragedy that secured his reputation in theatrical circles. Addison's prose style, characterized by clarity, elegance, and gentle satire, exemplifies the literary standards of his era and influenced generations of English writers. The collected works preserve for posterity the writings of a man who served his country in high political office while maintaining his position as a leading light of English letters during the reign of Queen Anne. more

Author

Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison, born on May 1, 1672, and died on June 17, 1719, was an influential English essayist, dramatist, and poet. He is known for his elegant prose style and his co-authorship of the magazine 'The Spectator' with Richard Steele. more

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“A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero,--the wise, the good, or the great man,--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.”

“There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm.”

“Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.”

“Were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.”