MARGARET HAZLITT (1770-1841)

Margaret Hazlitt's recollections of her literary family, written for the information and instruction of her nephew William Hazlitt (1811-1893), cover the period from 1737 to about 1812. She compiled information on her father William Hazlitt (1737-1820), and her brothers William Hazlitt (1778-1830) and John Hazlitt (1767-1837) from family papers and her own recollections, as well as those of her mother. The diary is of great interest for its account of the origins and history of the Hazlitt family and its detailed description of the visit of the Reverend William Hazlitt and his family to North America from 1783 to 1787. Margaret Hazlitt's journal is the sole source of material on the early years of her brother, essayist and critic William Hazlitt, and a valuable record of conditions in the United States immediately after the American Revolution. The text, edited by Ernest J. Moyne, was published by the University of Kansas Press in 1967.