This modern-English edition of William Hazlitt’s classic Lectures on the English Poets makes his brilliant critical essays accessible to today’s readers. Hazlitt surveys English poetry from Chaucer to his own contemporaries—Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, and others—with unmatched verve and insight. His judgments are often provocative and always engaging, reflecting a deep love of literature and a keen understanding of human nature. This edition updates Hazlitt’s early 19th‑century language into clear, contemporary English while preserving the force and elegance of his original arguments. Whether you are discovering Hazlitt for the first time or returning to a favorite critic, this edition offers an inviting entry into one of the foundation texts of English literary criticism. Part of The Modern Wisdom Library.