Release date is 2022-04-10

William Hazlitt -- Edward FitzGerald -- Thoreau -- Thoreau's demand upon nature -- Robert Louis Stevenson -- A relish of Keats -- Anatole France -- Verbal magic -- Quotability -- The grace of obscurity -- In defense of the traveler's notebook -- Concerning the lack of an American literature.

Emmanuel Ackerman, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

"Friends on the Shelf" by Bradford Torrey is a reflective essay collection written in the early 20th century. The book explores the lives and thoughts of significant literary figures such as William Hazlitt and Edward FitzGerald, delving into the nature of friendship, solitude, and the sustained impact of literature on one’s life. The opening of the book introduces the theme of literary companionship through a meditation on Hazlitt, illustrating his complexity as a person who, despite numerous disappointments, maintained a profound appreciation for life and its joys. Torrey presents Hazlitt’s thoughts on happiness, the importance of emotional richness, and the interplay between memory and sentimentality. The text also hints at the exploration of various other writers, indicating that the book will weave together snippets of their philosophies and literary contributions, celebrating a deep camaraderie with the written word and the solace it provides. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: United States: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906