A poet and banker who knew everybody, Samuel Rogers (1763-1865) was a brilliant recorder of things said by his famous and powerful contemporaries, from Edmund Burke to Talleyrand, from Charles James Fox to the Duke of Wellington. Originally published in the 1830s, his energetic, entertaining, and occasionally eye-popping “table-talk” gives phenomenal texture to our understanding of Regency high life. Reading it is like eavesdropping on the past. Introduced by the distinguished literary critic Professor Christopher Ricks.