The best editions of The Spectator are: Henry Morley's, 3 volumes, 1883, or 1 volume, 1888; G. Gregory Smith's, with Introductory Essay by Austin Dobson, 8 volumes, 1897-1898; and George A. Aitken's, 8 volumes, 1898. The Complete Works of Addison were edited by G. W. Greene, in 1854; a new issue of this edition appeared in 1891. The best volume of selections from Addison is that edited by John Richard Green, Essays of Joseph Addison, 1882.
BIOGRAPHY
Steele
The Life of Richard Steele, by George A. Aitken, 1899. This is the latest and fullest life.
Richard Steele, by Austin Dobson, in the English Worthies Series, 1886; a brief but appreciative study.
Biographical Essays, by John Forster, 1860, Steele. This paper, originally published in the Quarterly Review for March, 1855, gave, for the first time, that more favourable estimate of the character and genius of Steele which is now generally accepted.
Lectures on the English Humorists, Steele, by W. M. Thackeray. Thackeray's lecture, delivered first in 1851, is a most charming and suggestive paper, but hardly just to Steele.
Addison
Addison, by W. J. Courthope, in the English Men of Letters Series, 1884. The best life; it has superseded, for the general reader, the older Life of Joseph Addison, by Lucy Aiken, 1846.
The Life and Writings of Addison, by T. B. Macaulay. Macaulay's familiar essay, which first appeared in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1843, is still the best brief estimate, though it rather exaggerates the merits both of Addison's genius and his writings.