Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1826
- Form
- Essay
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 15 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendSelected WritingsOxford World's Classics, 2009Jon Cook's selection is the best single volume of Hazlitt's essays; the Harvard Classics text is free online.
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An essay recalling an evening at Charles Lamb's some twenty years earlier, when the company played the game of naming which dead persons they would most like to have met. Lamb, the essay's real subject, rejects the obvious choices, argues for Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, and at the end names Christ, before which the room falls silent. Along the way the talk takes in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Newton, Locke, Pope, Dr Johnson, Rousseau and the conversation of geniuses generally.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.