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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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18th century suede covered Dictionary ... Read more

Book Description
With these two volumes Princeton University Press concludes the first scholarly edition of the letters of Samuel Johnson to appear in forty years. Volume IV chronicles the last three years of Johnson's life, an epistolary endgame that includes the breakup of the friendship with Hester Thrale and a poignant reaching out to new friends and new experiences. Volume V includes not only the comprehensive index but those undated letters that cannot confidently be assigned to a specific year, "ghost" letters (those whose existence is documented in other sources), three letters that have recently been recovered, and translations of Johnson's letters in Latin. ... Read more

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In 1773, the great Samuel Johnson–then 63–and his young friend and future biographer, James Boswell, traveled together around the coast of Scotland, each writing his own account of the 83-day journey. Published in one volume, the very different travelogues of this unlikely duo provide a fascinating picture not only of the Scottish Highlands but also of the relationship between two men whose fame would be forever entwined.

Johnson's account contains elegant descriptions and analyses of what was then a remote and rugged land. In contrast, the Scottish-born Boswell's journal of the trip focuses on the psychological landscape of his famously gruff and witty companion, and is part of the material he was already collecting for his future Life of Samuel Johnson, the masterly biography that would make his name.

Read together, the two accounts form both a unique classic of travel writing and a revelation of one of the most famous literary friendships. ... Read more

Book Description
Samuel Johnson was one of the most important literary figures of the 18th century, which was sometimes known as the Age of Johnson. He authored a pioneering dictionary of the English language, edited Shakespeare, composed poetry and drama, and wrote numerous prose works on moral, philosophical, religious, political, and domestic concerns. Immortalized through Boswell's biography, he is as well-known for his traits and habits (including his witty and combative manner of conversation) as for his prodigious achievements in the world of letters. This encyclopedia is a comprehensive guide to Johnson and his milieu. This pioneering volume contains more than 650 alphabetically arranged entries on every aspect of Johnson's life, career, and personality. It describes each of his works in detail, examining such matters as composition, publication, and reception. It gives up-to-date accounts of his attitude on key themes and concepts, and explores his central ideas on literary, moral, political, social, and religious questions. It provides biographies of all the persons with whom Johnson had any sort of real contact, ranging from his close friends in the world of the arts and publishing, to his domestic intimates and servants, his extended family, and even his cat. A full system of cross-referencing allows readers to locate subjects and entries with ease. This is a one-stop aid which will enable students and readers of Johnson to locate almost any fact about him quickly and easily, and will provide guidance for any more detailed research which may be called for. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

AN EXCELLENT REFERENCE!
This work gathers in one convenient volume a wealth of information from many sources.Anyone reading the works of Samuel Johnson or James Boswell, or reading about Samuel Johnson or James Boswell, will find it immensely useful and endlessly browseable.It is expensive; but I cannot recommend it too highly for anyone who loves the study of Samuel Johnson and his world. I believe there is no other comparable reference work on this subject. ... Read more

Book Description
This authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Johnson's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by essays, criticism, and fiction - to give the essence of his work and thinking. Samuel Johnson's literary reputation rests on such a varied output that he defies easy description: poet, critic, lexicographer, travel writer, essayist, editor, and, thanks to his good friend Boswell, the subject of one of the most famous English biographies. This volume celebrates Johnson's astonishing talent by selecting widely across the full range of his work.It includes 'London' and 'The Vanity of Human Wishes' among other poems, and many of his essays for the Rambler and Idler. The prefaces to his edition of Shakespeare and his famous Dictionary, together with samples from the texts, are given, as well as selections from A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, the Lives of the Poets, and Rasselas in its entirety. There is also a substantial representation of lesser-known prose, and of his poetry, letters, and journals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Don't buy this edition!Missing pages!
Great book, but there is an edition problem where there are pages missing.I got 2 copies, same problem.They promised that they wouldn't charge, and they have.This sucks!

The One to Buy
This is the anthology to buy.Mona Wilson's collection from 1963 is also good, but the texts are less certain.Greene's annotations and bibliography are expert.He was the leading student of Johnson in the 20th century (after, he would say, his mentor James Clifford).I agree with Frank Lynch that it would be preferable to have the entire Journey here, but it is readily available elsewhere and students will find it very convenient to see some of Johnson's little-known but very important works (his life of Boerhaave, e.g. and his Sermon #5) available in this large but relatively inexpensive anthology.

The Joy of Reading Johnson
The case of Dr. Johnson is a strange one. On the one hand, the extent of his achievements, the magnetism of his personality, and the sheer strength of his genius has forever secured him a place among the literary giants of all ages. On the other hand, Time seems to have both granted him fame and deprived him of readers. Nowadays, when people want Dr. Johnson, they go straight to James Boswell. The man has sadly overshadowed the author; and Samuel Johnson is not as much read as he is quoted, nor as closely appreciated as he is admired from afar. Indeed, his works fit Mark Twain's definition of a classic: "A book which people praise and don't read".

And that is a shame, since, as this book amply proves, Samuel Johnson is one of the best and most delightful writers the world has ever seen. He is deep in meaning, and felicitous in expression; never dull, always memorable. As the man himself, his prose has a fascinating quality to it: his architecturally built sentences expand for what sometimes feels like forever, linking up ideas and images, until a sudden burst of energy condenses the whole paragraph into a brilliant aphorism. Each phrase is balanced to perfection. Whenever obscure, Johnson usually illustrates his words with exact allusions, metaphors and similes; he particularly relishes in three-folded tropes: "To a community, sedition is a fever, corruption a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy" (pg 285); "In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence" (pg 664). His acute and eminently quotable observations, whether about learned matters ("Notes are often necessary, but a necessary evil") or about human nature in general ("Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard ") are to be found throughout his whole oeuvre.

However, as painstakingly constructed as his writings might appear to be, the incredible truth is that he wrote many of them as he went along, without even reading them over, prodded by deadlines and debts. Johnson admitted having sometimes written half an essay on the spot, sent it to the presses, and finished the second half as the first half was being printed. He wrote his only novel, Rasselas, in the evenings of a week, and the first 48 pages of his wonderful Life of Savage in a sitting. "But then again, I sat all night", he added. That nervous energy can be felt even in his calmer passages, lurking in between the lines, waiting for the inevitable outburst of indignation or angry disapproval to be released.

Regarding this edition, it is by far the best one-volume anthology of Johnson's works now available. It's biggest defect, in fact, consists merely in its inappropriate title: the very prologue happily admits the book is a wide-ranging sampling of Johnson's output and not just his "Major Works". Oxford just decided to re-name the anthology without touching the content, which explains why it still proudly includes Latin School exercises, extemporary verses, pieces "printed in full for the first time" and "lesser-known works". While I would have preferred having fewer, yet more complete pieces, the selection at least feels fresh and does not leave out any of Johnson's must-haves: his poetry (which, although often overlooked, was admired by authors such as TS Eliot), his timeless essays and remarkable biographies, the Preface to his Dictionary (of which some facsimile pages are included), the Preface to his edition of Shakespeare's plays (surely one of the best-written and most lucid examples of literary criticism ever published), Rasselas unabridged, and a few of his Lives of the Poets -which are, of course, quintessential Johnson. In other words, this book is a perfect introduction to those who are new to the author, and even the most avid Johnsonian will find in it something he has never read before, or an excuse to reread something he already knows by heart.

Samuel Johnson is someone towards whom one can feel many things, but not indifference. Hazlitt detested him and decried the "periodical revolution of his style", that search for equilibrium which often made Johnson turn from high praise to stern criticism in the blink of an eye; Carlyle crowned him "the Hero of the Man of Letters". It seems that people must either love the Doctor's elegance, or hate his pompous use of polysyllabic and Latinate words; either exalt his discernment, or deplore his intolerance. I am no exception to the rule. Simply put, I think reading Johnson means enjoying most of the pleasures Literature can give. That is why I consider he deserves more than our mere admiration: he deserves to be read. Certainly Samuel Johnson's achievements alone would make him remembered, but it's his writings that make him unforgettable.

Beef Up Your English
OK, I'll admit it... When I dropped out of high school at the tender age of 14 for a career of glue-sniffing and joy-riding round the graffiti-sprayed council estates of my native Irvine, I was a 'seven-stone weakling' in terms of using the English language.

Brought up on a diet of comic books, tabloid newspapers, and football magazines (Shoot, Match Weekly, etc) and 'educated' in a Socialist-inspired 'comprehensive' school, I wasn't really equipped for my future career as an international journalist. But then something very strange and bewitching happened - I discovered 'THE DOCTOR,' as we acolytes refer to him, and started mentally working out on his long, finely wrought sentences.

At first, each seemingly interminable sentence was like trying to swim the English Channel - I thought I would drown before reaching the other end - but, somehow, I survived and found myself on dry land, confused and wet, but nevertheless alive and raring to have another go.

In the months that followed, the good doctor's erudite style became Mother's milk to me as I progressively beefed up my English. This enabled me to grab a place at the prestigious university of Thames Polytechnic and, then, on graduation, to a career writing for a wide range of excellent publications, including Riff Raff, Tokyo Notice Board, and the Wall Street Journal.

The great thing about THE DOCTOR's prose is that he uses a disproportionate number of abstract nouns, which means you have to mentally provide your own examples. At first this can be extremely challenging, but if you stick with it, your brain will become, as mine has, a potent and expressive tool.

A Good Example of the English Language
Johnson's sentences are so beautifully composed that when reading him, I am apt to focus mainly on his sentence structures rather than what he says. This is not to say that his philosophy is boring; indeed it is very interesting and inspiring, only the way he translated that philosophy into words is more so. "What? Johnson's style is more inspiring than his philosophy? Nothing could be more absurd," some may say. Certainly the frequent use of inserted clauses and complex phrases makes some of his sentences a little cumbersome, and those who are accustomed to an easy read often find his style less acceptable, especially when the movement of "Plain English" is reaching its climax, and writing plainly and succinctly has become a virtue. But Johnson's prose style has an attraction-or a spell if you like-we can never find in, say, newspaper articles; insomuch that those who see language as more than a means of communication, that is, those who can enjoy language for its own sake, find wandering into his lanaguage labyrinth far more pleasant than merely digesting what today's main news communicate.

In his criticism "The Plays of William Shakespeare," Johnson wrote, "The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence but by remarking that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments," suggesting that if Shakespeare's works provoked reverence, it is in so far as it had survived the test of time. Now, reading this statement more than two century after his death, I believe that we can revere Johnson's works for the same reason he revered Shakespeare.
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Book Description
A unique one-volume selection of Samuel Johnson’s writings on spiritual and moral topics provides an unusually inspiring portrait of the man and his thought.

Most readers know Dr. Johnson (1709—1784) as the formidable compiler of his famous Dictionary and as the witty conversationalist portrayed in Boswell’s Life. By contrast, this book–which draws on little-known unsigned sermons he wrote for hire for clergy friends, his private prayers and devotions, essays, poems, diaries, letters, and even key definitions from the Dictionary–offers a rare opportunity to discover Johnson’s rich insight and consoling spirituality gathered in one place. Boswell observed that "He was a sincere and zealous ChristianÉ. He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion and morality; both from a regard for the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order." This Vintage Spiritual Classics Original opens a window on the moral universe of the leading English writer of the eighteenth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Johnson's political views, examined in detail
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Donald Greene's readings of Johnson's political behavior, and the pieces he wrote (including not just the pamphlets of the 1770's, but also the Parliamentary debates and early tracts) clarifies our understanding. Boswell just wasn't as thorough on these matters, nor was W. Jackson Bate. This book, simply speaking, is invaluable. ... Read more

Book Description
The original manuscript of James Boswell`s Life of Johnson-a composite of his basic draft and innumerable revisions-served as printer`s copy despite its maze-like appearance. This book is the first of four volumes to be devoted to that original manuscript, an edition that will make this complex document accessible for the first time. The specially designed text, supplemented by textual and explanatory notes, enables the reader to trace all the substantive changes Boswell made in the process of composition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Excellent Scholarly Edition
The only review for this book ('a reader from Kansas City') is somewhat misguided and perhaps refers to the Life of Johnson in general.

Professor Waingrow's volume (1 of a projected 4) of the Original Manuscript of JamesBoswell's Life of Johnson is an invaluable work of scholarship which shouldstimulate Boswellian and Johnsonian studies for generations to come.

Thereader is able to trace,though Waingrow's thorough and carefulannotations,changes madeto the text by Boswell throughout all stages ofcomposition. Much is explained through detailed footnotes and there is afull introduction which explains Prof. Waingrow's own method of annotationand includes some speculation concerning the interest of the manuscriptedition for scholars.

The work is designed as a companion to theHill-Powell edition of the Life of Johnson; each page is provided with thecorresponding number in their edition.

It thus holds much for thoseinterested in the study of Boswell's methodology,but all Johnsonianscholars and those interested in the tradition of biographical writing willbenefit from this work.

Most overrated biography ever
James Boswell wrote what is considered by many to be the greatest biography ever written.He does do an excellent job of describing to the reader what kind of person Samuel Johnson was, as he makes an artfullyvivid portrait of his subject. However, it is unfortunately better artthan history. It is factually inaccurate,painfully repetitive, and leavesthe reader with little understanding of why Samuel Johnson was an importantman at all. ... Read more