Table Talk

A streak in a flower, a wrinkle in a leaf, a stain on an old wall: William Hazlitt finds a day’s pleasure in learning to see them—and in trying to paint them.

In these essays, first published in 1821, the English critic turns from the quiet joy of painting to the vexations of writing, and from the smallest detail in nature to the largest questions of art and thought. Hazlitt writes with the candour of a man who would rather keep his thoughts than watch them fade into words, yet he draws readers into the pleasures and failures of looking closely. What can the painter discover on canvas that the writer loses on the page?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.