Joseph Addison
Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004. First printing.0865974438 xxvi/282 pages.
Softcover, measuring approximately 6.25" x 9.25", is like new.
"First staged in 1713, Joseph Addison's "Cato: A Tragedy" inspired many in the eighteenth century with a portrayal of Roman senator Cato the Younger's (95-46 B.C.) willingness to take his own life rather than to submit to the tyrannical rule of Julius Caesar. Set in North Africa, the play depicts the final hours of Cato's resistance to Caesar. George Washington found "Cato" such a powerful statement of liberty, honor, virtue, and patriotism that he had it performed for his men in Valley Forge during the American Revolution.
Despite "Cato"'s enormous success, Addison was perhaps best known as an essayist. In periodicals like the Spectator, Guardian, Tatler, and Freeholder, he sought to educate England's developing middle class in the habits, morals, and manners he believed necessary for the preservation of a free society. Addison's work in these periodicals helped to define the modern English essay form. Samuel Johnson said of his writing, "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but no ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the study of Addison." This volume brings together Addison's dramatic masterpiece along with a selection of his essays that are directly related to the play and that develop its key themes."