Selections From The Tatler And The Spectator

This volume offers a selection of essays from The Tatler and The Spectator (1709-1714). The accompanying texts include excerpts from other periodicals such as The Guardian, The London Spy, and The Female Tatler; advertisements; and selections by Defoe, Ward, Flecknoe, Gay, Mandville, Pope, and Swift. A general introduction providing historical and cultural background, a chronolgy of Addison's and Steele's lives and times, an introduction to each thematic group of documents, headnotes, extensive annotations, a selected bibliography, and illustrations make this volume a unique scholarly edition of the periodical papers that helped define eighteenth-century culture and standards.

Collection of essays includes selected complete numbers of the Tatler and the Spectator, along with single essays from later publications. Known or "reasonably conjectured" authorship indicated. Several of the selected works are by Addison or Steele.