The Life of Samuel JohnsonPenguin UK, 2008 M10 30 - 1312 pages In Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality. While Johnson’s Dictionary remains a monument of scholarship, and his essays and criticism command continuing respect, we owe our knowledge of the man himself to this biography. Through a series of wonderfully detailed anecdotes, Johnson emerges as a sociable figure with a huge appetite for life, crossing swords with other great eighteenth-century luminaries, from Garrick and Goldsmith to Burney and Burke – even his long-suffering friend and disciple James Boswell. Yet Johnson had a vulnerable, even tragic, side and anxieties and obsessions haunted his private hours. Boswell’s sensitivity and insight into every facet of his subject’s character ultimately make this biography as moving as it is entertaining. |
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... Garrick, when he heard of this;) I shall have my old friend to bail out of the Roundhouse.' But I can bear testimony that it was a very agreeable association.21 This is not just a case of, in our well-worn phrase, opposites attracting ...
... Garrick's description of Johnson's way of wit suggests – 'Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no' – there was a roughness even in his affection, a thread of violence woven through his.
... Garrick, acknowl. 1781. Prefaces Biographical and Critical to the Works of the most eminent English Poets; afterwards published with the Title of Lives of the English Poets. acknowl. Argument on the Importance of the Registration of ...
... Garrick, father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above all, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley,a Register of the Prerogative Court of Lichfield, whose character, long after his decease, Dr. Johnson has, in his Life of Edmund Smith ...
... Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the publick stock of ...