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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... Perhaps no au- thor offers more of a challenge , however , than Samuel Johnson . For most of the last two centuries , Johnson's personality — or what Bertrand Bronson more accurately called his " folk - image " 1 — has tended to be far ...
... perhaps the most notable aristocratic man of letters and patron of letters in England . Soon everyone would know . A few months passed with no reply . Then one Friday , February 7 , 1755 , Johnson wrote a letter to Chesterfield . No ...
... Perhaps he even savored the challenge to his savoir - faire . A master at putting on a good face , he did not mind being the center of public attention . The letter would not have become so famous , however , had it not represented ...
... . As a matter of fact , at least one person remembered the origi- nal as different from the official copy Johnson dictated some decades later.15 Perhaps " that celebrated letter of which so 15 The Letter to Chesterfield.
The Life of an Author Lawrence Lipking. decades later.15 Perhaps " that celebrated letter of which so much has been said " was not at all the same in 1790 as it had been in 1755.16 In that case readers might have to change their minds ...
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 |