• TRILOGY - Three books about Dr Samuel Johnson are in this Kindle eBook: "Boswell's Life of Johnson"; "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides"; and "Dr Johnson and His Circle"
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. (Abridged Edition, First Published 1917)
Written by James Boswell, edited by Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Professor of English, Princeton University
James Boswell's acquaintance with Samuel Johnson began in a bookshop in 1763, when Johnson was 54 and Johnson was 22. During his life, Boswell (a lawyer) kept journals detailing important moments. Boswell had an excellent eye for detail and a reverence for his subject, a man of literary integrity and charming conversation. He noted Johnson's words as well as his peculiarities—his twitching face, his poor table manners, his abruptness when confronted with people he considered stupid.
The first conversation between Johnson and Boswell (quoted in Life of Samuel Johnson) was:
[Boswell:] "Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it."
[Johnson:] "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.
The biography was a critical success when it was first published and it became an important step in the development of the biography genre. Frederick Pottle calls the biography "the crowning achievement of an artist who for more than twenty five years had been deliberately disciplining himself for such a task."
Dr Johnson and His Circle by John Cann Bailey (1913)
Samuel Johnson (born in 1709 in Lichfield, Staffordshire) was the son of a bookseller who became one of the greatest literary figures of the 18th century, famously compiling "A Dictionary of the English Language". He most famously said ‘...when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’.
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. (Abridged Edition, First Published 1917)
Written by James Boswell, edited by Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Professor of English, Princeton University
James Boswell's acquaintance with Samuel Johnson began in a bookshop in 1763, when Johnson was 54 and Johnson was 22. During his life, Boswell (a lawyer) kept journals detailing important moments. Boswell had an excellent eye for detail and a reverence for his subject, a man of literary integrity and charming conversation. He noted Johnson's words as well as his peculiarities—his twitching face, his poor table manners, his abruptness when confronted with people he considered stupid.
The first conversation between Johnson and Boswell (quoted in Life of Samuel Johnson) was:
[Boswell:] "Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it."
[Johnson:] "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.
The biography was a critical success when it was first published and it became an important step in the development of the biography genre. Frederick Pottle calls the biography "the crowning achievement of an artist who for more than twenty five years had been deliberately disciplining himself for such a task."
"The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" (1786) by James Boswell
Boswell's preliminary attempt at a biography before his Life of Johnson records the life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the leading literary figure of the century and author of "A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)."
Dr Johnson and His Circle by John Cann Bailey (1913)
Samuel Johnson (born in 1709 in Lichfield, Staffordshire) was the son of a bookseller who became one of the greatest literary figures of the 18th century, famously compiling "A Dictionary of the English Language". He most famously said ‘...when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’.
