Samuel Johnson: The Life of an AuthorHarvard University Press, 2009 M07 1 - 384 pages He was a servant to the public, a writer for hire. He was a hero, an author adding to the glory of his nation. But can a writer be both hack and hero? The career of Samuel Johnson, recounted here by Lawrence Lipking, proves that the two can be one. And it further proves, in its enduring interest for readers, that academic fashions today may be a bit hasty in pronouncing the "death of the author." |
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... Preface to the Dictionary would fan into a blaze . Indifferent and solitary , the author presents himself as a resi- dent of the rocks . He has evidently suffered irremediable losses that have left him without a companion or the ...
... Preface to the Dictionary reviews its choices of quotations to illustrate words , " authour " seems interchangeable with " authority " : " when it happened that any authour gave a definition of a term ... I have placed his authority as ...
... Preface to the Dictionary , he canonized Bacon , Hooker , Milton , and Boyle . Addison had no place in that list ; he had added little or nothing to the glory of literature or the store of knowledge . Though young Johnson exercised his ...
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Contents
11 | |
34 | |
48 | |
Preferments Gate The Vanity of Human Wishes | 86 |
Man of Letters A Dictionary of the English Language | 103 |
The Living World The Rambler | 145 |
Reclaiming Imagination Rasselas | 173 |
The Theater of Mind The Plays of William Shakespeare | 198 |
Journeying Westward Political Writings A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland | 234 |
Touching the Shore The Lives of the English Poets | 259 |
The Life to Come Johnsons Endings | 295 |
Abbreviation | 307 |
Notes | 309 |
Index | 363 |