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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... sure, replied he; but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard for truth, would make the book useless to all, and injurious to my character.'Oh! as to that, said I, we should all fasten upon him, and force him to do you ...
... sure, though moderate income for his life; and an offer being made to him of the mastership of a school,a provided he could obtain the degree of Master of Arts, Dr. Adams was applied to, by a common friend, to know whether that could be ...
... sure endear him more to numbers of good men. I have an additional, and that a personal motive for presenting it, because it sanctions what I myself have always maintained and am fond to indulge. 'April 26, 1752, being after 12 at Night ...
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