Sir Richard Steele

Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) was an Irish-born British essayist, playwright, politician, and periodical writer. His major works include the plays The Conscious Lovers and The Funeral, and especially the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator, produced with Joseph Addison. Sir Richard Steele mattered because he helped create the eighteenth-century periodical essay as a form of public conversation about manners, morals, taste, gender, commerce, and sociability. His writing is warmer and more emotionally direct than Addison's, often concerned with domestic virtue, friendship, and moral improvement in ordinary life. He also served in Parliament and engaged in political controversy. His quotes endure because they warn against spending life in service of the passions, urging instead that passion be employed in the service of life. His essays still make moral improvement sound like public conversation.

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