Big fan of Sam Johnson. I’ve read most of his essays— the Delphi Complete Samuel Johnson on Kindle is pretty great; for years, my nightly habit was to read Johnson in bed. Perfectly engaging, but not disturbing in any way, it made great bedtime reading.
I recently set out an abridgment of his dictionary as a Staff Pick at the used bookstore where I work, and it sold pretty quickly. Gratifying!
It is no accident that Virginia Woolf chose Samuel Johnson to lead off her Common Reader or that both she and her father, Leslie Stephen, saw Boswell as the consummate biographer. It is also no accident that she, too, uses periodic sentences!!
In those same eight-week blocks I avoided Johnson (frankly most of the 18th century) in favour of late Milton, Dryden, Pope and the South Sea Bubble; then a hop-skip-jump to Ann Radcliffe. But I do love the Tour To The Hebrides, and you’ve persuaded me I should give some unadulterated London Johnson a go.
I read this post on Apocrypha and am very happy to read it again. I have Johnson's essays on my bedside table to dip in and out of and have just bought Boswell to try to get to grips a little more. I also loved reading Beryl Bainbridge's "According to Queeney" which covers the last years of his life with Hester Thrale and her daughter, Queeney. Fictionalised, of course, but rather a wonderful picture of Sam nonetheless.
I started reading him seriously a few years ago, after going through an Alexander Pope jag. I think Rasselas is one of the neglected masterpieces of the canon.
Beautiful, Henry, beautiful and true. Since we talked this summer, I have read a few pages of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson each evening. A fine way to spend the present moment.
I think that Rasselas quote gets at the centre of the problem. Nobody reads him. They read Boswell, because Boswell is fun and so is Boswell’s Johnson. But on the page he just sounds wordy.
You can find Defoe and Fielding, Richardson and Sterne in bookshops. Johnson never. There must be a reason!
I have to agree with this. Johnson is another of those writers I admire more than I like. Boswell is a total delight - partly because he writes more conversationally, and partly because, along with his insight into other people, his own vanity and insecurity are so clear on the surface that it is hard not to be engaged by it. Johnson is acute and pointed and well-constructed, but I find it difficult to get past the artifice of the language. I quite like the poetry, and the Lives of the Poets, but I couldn't get very far with Rasselas, and the Rambler essays seem to me very ponderous when set beside the Spectator essays of Addison and Steele, which they are heavily dependent upon.
Big fan of Sam Johnson. I’ve read most of his essays— the Delphi Complete Samuel Johnson on Kindle is pretty great; for years, my nightly habit was to read Johnson in bed. Perfectly engaging, but not disturbing in any way, it made great bedtime reading.
I recently set out an abridgment of his dictionary as a Staff Pick at the used bookstore where I work, and it sold pretty quickly. Gratifying!
He’s the great one
It is no accident that Virginia Woolf chose Samuel Johnson to lead off her Common Reader or that both she and her father, Leslie Stephen, saw Boswell as the consummate biographer. It is also no accident that she, too, uses periodic sentences!!
Agree!
I was also thinking of Woolf as I read.
In those same eight-week blocks I avoided Johnson (frankly most of the 18th century) in favour of late Milton, Dryden, Pope and the South Sea Bubble; then a hop-skip-jump to Ann Radcliffe. But I do love the Tour To The Hebrides, and you’ve persuaded me I should give some unadulterated London Johnson a go.
Johnsons's Lives of Milton and Pope are not a bad starting place tbh
Noted. Thanks.
I read this post on Apocrypha and am very happy to read it again. I have Johnson's essays on my bedside table to dip in and out of and have just bought Boswell to try to get to grips a little more. I also loved reading Beryl Bainbridge's "According to Queeney" which covers the last years of his life with Hester Thrale and her daughter, Queeney. Fictionalised, of course, but rather a wonderful picture of Sam nonetheless.
Based on his letters so not outlandishly made up imo, a really splendid novel
I started reading him seriously a few years ago, after going through an Alexander Pope jag. I think Rasselas is one of the neglected masterpieces of the canon.
💯
Beautiful, Henry, beautiful and true. Since we talked this summer, I have read a few pages of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson each evening. A fine way to spend the present moment.
oh that is splendid, what a joy!
Loved this post. Solid stuff. Good writing. Johnson's disregard for Milton made me think of Nabokov's disregard for Dostoevsky.
Which of Johnson’s works should a novice begin with?
Rasselas
You've got a typographical error in the second sentence. I would leave it, because perfection is an affront to God and Nature.
ah thanks :)
The footnote you sited sounded familiar and I realised it's a re-write of the Duke's sermon to Claudio in Measure for Measure!
"Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep
Dreaming on both, for all thy blessèd youth
Becomes as agèd and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant."
I think that Rasselas quote gets at the centre of the problem. Nobody reads him. They read Boswell, because Boswell is fun and so is Boswell’s Johnson. But on the page he just sounds wordy.
You can find Defoe and Fielding, Richardson and Sterne in bookshops. Johnson never. There must be a reason!
No one ever sells their copy of Johnson
Bad books drive out good?
I have to agree with this. Johnson is another of those writers I admire more than I like. Boswell is a total delight - partly because he writes more conversationally, and partly because, along with his insight into other people, his own vanity and insecurity are so clear on the surface that it is hard not to be engaged by it. Johnson is acute and pointed and well-constructed, but I find it difficult to get past the artifice of the language. I quite like the poetry, and the Lives of the Poets, but I couldn't get very far with Rasselas, and the Rambler essays seem to me very ponderous when set beside the Spectator essays of Addison and Steele, which they are heavily dependent upon.
What do you think of Beryl Bainbridge's According to Queenie?
I loved it, devoured it three times over, and it accorded with what I know about Dr Johnson. Do you think it does?
yeah good book, based on the letters---wrote about it once https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/was-samuel-johnson-a-masochist?utm_source=publication-search