Table-Talk (Hazlitt)

Table-Talk; Or, Original Essays

Title page of Table-Talk, volume 1 of 1st edition
Author	William Hazlitt
Country	England
Language	English
Genre	Cultural criticism, social criticism
Publisher	John Warren
Publication date	Vol. I: 6 April 1821; Vol. II: 15 June 1822
Preceded by	Lectures Chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth
Followed by	Characteristics: In the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims

Table-Talk is a collection of essays by the English cultural critic and social commentator William Hazlitt. It was originally published as two volumes, the first of which appeared in April 1821. The essays deal with topics such as art, literature and philosophy. Duncan Wu has described the essays as the "pinnacle of [Hazlitt's] achievement", and argues that Table-Talk and The Plain Speaker (1826) represent Hazlitt's masterpiece.

Hazlitt published his first book, a work of philosophy, in 1805. In the years between his authorial debut and the publication of Table-Talk, Hazlitt was employed as a journalist, critic and lecturer, and published several collections of writing on topics such as Shakespearean criticism, politics and literature. In 1819, following the hostile reception of his Political Essays by the Tory press and the repressive legislation introduced after the Peterloo Massacre, Hazlitt foreswore writing further essays on political subjects. It should be noted that political insight is by no means absent from Hazlitt's subsequent works, and publications such as The Spirit of the Age (1825) condemn figures such as Robert Southey for their abandonment of political radicalism, while Hazlitt's biography of Napoleon (four volumes; 1828–1830) aimed to defend his reputation against a biography from the Tory Sir Walter Scott.

Hazlitt's first wife, Sarah Stoddart, owned property in Winterslow, a village in Wiltshire. Hazlitt regularly travelled from London to the village, and was particularly fond of staying at Winterslow Hut, an inn, where he could write in peace. Many of the Table-Talk essays were composed there. The second volume was completed on 7 March 1822 at Renton Inn, near Edinburgh.

An example of Hazlitt's style is provided by the first essay in the volume, entitled "On the Pleasure of Painting". The piece was originally intended to be a reflection on the life of Hazlitt's father, who died in 1820. However, it grew into an account of Hazlitt's views on the nature of art and the mental satisfaction to be derived from painting. It concludes with a deeply personal account of an occasion when Hazlitt painted his father's portrait in the Unitarian chapel at Wem, Shropshire. The use of the pronoun "I" here, along with the personal subject matter, is indicative of Hazlitt's mastery of the familiar essay.