8vo. In two volumes. [4], 465pp; [4], 447pp, [1]. Uncut in original publisher's powder blue paper boards, recently rebacked in buckram, contrasting burgundy morocco lettering-pieces. Boards rubbed, marked, and worn at edges. Near contemporary inked ownership inscription to FFEP, some surface loss to title page of Vol. I., some loss to terminal gathering of Vol. II, without loss of textscattered spotting.

The first edition of Hazlitt's collection of essays on 'books, men and things', many of which were composed during a period of isolation following the release of his controversial Liber Amoris; or, The New Pygmalion (1823). Essays such as 'On the Pleasure of Hating' reveal the extent of the disillusionment felt by Hazlitt in this turbulent phase of his life, as he describes the 'narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others' by which he, and humanity, is possessed. Biographer Stanley Jones, in Hazlitt: A Life - From Winterslow to Frith Street (1989), deemed that together with the Table-Talk essays, Hazlitt's Plain Speaker remained 'the major work of his life'.