Some Literary Eccentrics - Paperback

Includes profiles of authors such as Walter Savage Landor, William Hazlitt, Sir John Mandeville, Thomas Amory, William Beckford, Charles Babbage, James I, and others of similarly eccentric ilk. The word eccentric is not to be taken in every case as a term of reproach; for as John Stuart Mill long ago pointed out, eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded. Moreover, the eleven literary eccentrics here presented exhibit the quality in very varying degree; ranging from just that spice of singularity which raises a man above the commonplace, to an excess of morbidity which places him on the border-land of insanity.