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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... 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 . But he also kept ...
... Writing the Lives of Writers , ed . Warwick Gould and Tom Staley ( London : Macmillan , 1998 ) ; Chapter 2 , on a piece in Domestick Privacies : Samuel Johnson and the Art of Biography , ed . David Wheeler ( Lexing- ton : University ...
... written . By contrast , this book passes over details that do not shed light on the work . It assumes that the crucial part of an author's life is what has gone into his writing , and it tries to bring out the powers of mind and feeling ...
... writing the life of an author — someone whose life has gone into creating a body of work . That part of his example has not borne much fruit . These days not many biographies seem comfortable with the process of writing . Often , in ...
... warrior as the author of a wound . Then , when the definitions narrow to writing , a similar falling off occurs between the third sense , which stresses priority , and the fourth , which admits that sometimes " author 5 Introduction.
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 |