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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... acquaintance of Voltaire and Rousseau, and developed an interest in Corsican affairs. His Account of Corsica (1768) and a less successful sequel (1769) brought him the fame he so desired. Boswell is best remembered for this masterly ...
... acquaintance of which I had been so long ambitious': My readers will, I trust, excuse me for being thus minutely circumstantial, when it is considered that the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson was to me a most valuable acquisition, and laid ...
... acquaintance Topham Beauclerk: Johnson, soon after this acquaintance [with Bennet Langton] began, passed a considerable time at Oxford. He at first thought it strange that Langton should associate so much with one who had the character ...
... in London in 1737, however, Johnson 'abstained entirely from fermented liquors: a practice to which he rigidly conformed for many years together, at different periods of his life'.77 Meeting his old acquaintance Oliver Edwards.
James Boswell David Womersley. periods of his life'.77 Meeting his old acquaintance Oliver Edwards in 1778, Johnson spoke frankly about his fitful use of alcohol: 'I now drink no wine, Sir. Early in life I drank wine: for many years I ...