Joseph Addison
Richard Steele
(1672–1719)

Although great writing seldom results from a team effort, the collaboration of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele is an exception to the general rule. Addison and Steele's work on two precedent-setting periodicals, The Tatler and The Spectator, has earned both authors a permanent place in literary history.

The two men, born a few weeks apart, were opposites in many ways. Joseph Addison—dignified, shy, and rather cold—enjoyed a reputation as a Latin scholar. Richard Steele—energetic, witty, and outgoing— was a man-about-town. Nevertheless, for most of their lives they were close friends, temperamentally different but sharing similar aims and values. Addison, born in a village in Wiltshire, England, and Steele, born in Dublin, Ireland, met as classmates at the Charterhouse School in London. They then went on to Oxford, where Addison graduated but Steele did not.

Since his graduate days, Addison had pursed a different path from that of Steele. An outstanding student, he became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was invited by John Dryden to do translations of Virgil. After four years of European study and travel, he produced a hugely successful epic poem, "The Campaign," celebrating the Duke of Marlborough's victory at the Battle of Blenheim. In 1706, Addison was named undersecretary of state, and two years later was elected to the House of Commons, where he remained until his death.

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