Written partly for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, these lives combine biography with forceful criticism. De Quincey sifts the scanty records of Shakespeare’s life, weighs Pope’s quarrels and the Dunciad, remembers his friend Charles Lamb, and takes the measure of Goethe and Schiller with characteristic digressions.
Vigorous, opinionated essays by one of the great English prose stylists. Download the free EPUB.