Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) was born in Milston, Wiltshire, the son of a clergyman, and became the most admired prose stylist of the Augustan age. With his friend Richard Steele, he founded The Spectator (1711–1712, revived 1714), a daily periodical that reached thousands of readers through coffeehouses and created the genre of the familiar essay — elegant, witty, morally instructive, and addressed to the emerging middle-class reading public. Samuel Johnson’s famous tribute — “Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison” — secured his place in literary history.

Life and Career

Addison was educated at Charterhouse (where he met Steele) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was elected a fellow. A Latin poem on the Peace of Ryswick attracted the attention of Whig politicians, who sent him on a Grand Tour of Europe (1699–1703) to prepare him for a diplomatic career. His verse drama Cato (1713) — about the Roman republican’s resistance to Caesar — was one of the most successful plays of the century, claimed by both Whigs and Tories as political allegory.

The Tatler (1709–1711), founded by Steele, featured Addison’s contributions from the start. The Spectator, which they founded together, appeared daily from March 1711 to December 1712, consisting almost entirely of essays on manners, morals, taste, literature, and the social life of London. Addison’s contributions — particularly the Sir Roger de Coverley papers, sketching the life of a lovable, conservative country squire — set the standard for the periodical essay throughout the eighteenth century.

Addison served in Parliament and rose to Secretary of State before ill health forced his retirement. He died in 1719, reportedly summoning his dissolute stepson to his deathbed with the words, “See in what peace a Christian can die” — a scene that became famous, though its authenticity is debated.

Major Works and Themes

The Spectator essays are Addison’s lasting achievement. They created a model of public discourse — reasonable, humane, tolerant, witty — that shaped the English-speaking world’s idea of civilized conversation. Addison’s famous essay on “The Pleasures of the Imagination” (Spectator Nos. 411–421) is one of the earliest systematic treatments of aesthetics in English.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Addison was universally admired for a century after his death. His influence on the development of English prose — through Swift, Johnson, Goldsmith, and the entire essayistic tradition — is immense. His reputation declined in the nineteenth century as tastes changed, but his historical importance remains unchallenged.

Key Works

• The Spectator (1711–1714, with Steele)
• Cato (1713)

Collecting Addison

The original issues of The Spectator (1711–1712, published by Samuel Buckley and Jacob Tonson) are collected both as individual numbers and as bound sets. Complete bound sets of the original 555 issues bring $2,000–$10,000 depending on binding and condition.

First editions of Cato (1713, J. Tonson) bring $300–$1,000.

The collected Works in various eighteenth-century editions — particularly the edition by Thomas Tickell (1721, four volumes) — are handsome shelf sets: $500–$2,000.

Addison manuscript material is of the highest rarity.