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." |
From inside the book
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... mind at the moment of writing . Both kinds of readers play a part in this book . From one point of view , the story of Johnson's career is a long struggle to find an audience he eventually helped to create : the English common reader ...
... mind . More than one chapter of this book changed radically as the result of a question I could not answer or an idea I needed to make my own . I thank both friends and strangers for their questions . Chapter 1 of this book draws on a ...
... mind and the motives of someone else helps to define a moral being , according to Johnson , and many readers have testified that Johnson's example has helped them to live . The art of biography has grown from the spark that he kindled ...
... mind being the center of public attention . The letter would not have become so famous , however , had it not represented something more than a personal quarrel . Generations of readers have found it not only moving but deeply symbolic ...
... minds about the birth of the modern author as well as of the author Johnson . The point of any letter depends , after ... mind of which the prejudices and par- tialities are known , and must therefore please , if 16 THE BIRTH OF THE AUTHOR.
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 |