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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... Scotland.' 'Mr. Johnson,' said I, 'indeed I come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.' 'Sir,' replied he, 'that, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.' Mr. Johnson is a man of a most dreadful appearance. He ...
... Scotland,' cried Davies roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.'I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating ...
... Scotland a month or so later. It is nevertheless striking that the name of Boswell does not arise. The first public announcement of the Life is easier to pin down. At the end of his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), Boswell ...
... Scotland, there was a form of prayer for the dead.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is not in the liturgy which Laud framed for the Episcopal Church of Scotland: if there is a liturgy older than that, I should be glad to see it.' BOSWELL. 'As to our ...
... Scotland. acknowl. 1773. Preface to Macbean's 'Dictionary of Ancient Geography.' acknowl. Argument in Favour of the Rights of Lay Patrons; dictated to me for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. acknowl. 1774. The Patriot ...