'I am engaged to write little Lives, and little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets.' So wrote Samuel Johnson to James Boswell. Such understatement! It is difficult to believe he is writing about about what Walter Jackson Bate has described as 'one of the masterpieces in the history of both biography and literary criticism.' The occasion for the work was humdrum enough. It was conceived as a countermove, by thirty-six leading London booksellers and publishers, to an 'invasion of what we call our Literary Property.' In other words, a Scottish firm, the Apollo Press, were already publishing pocket-size volumes in a series called The British Poets. Samuel Johnson was recruited to provide the apparatus for the London equivalent. From the very first life - Abraham Cowley - is was clear he was going to do much more than that. Johnson was at the height of his powers, and this was a peculiarly congenial task. In all, he wrote fifty-two lives. He was paid a mere 200 guineas. He didn't grumble saying instead, 'The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but I have written too much.' Of this great work T. S. Eliot wrote, 'Considering all the temptations to which one is exposed in judging contemporary writing, all the prejudices which one is tempted to indulge in judging writers of the immediately preceding generation, I view Johnson's Lives of the Poets as a masterpiece of the judicial bench.' Faber Finds, in the year that celebrates the 300th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's birth, is reissuing a great work in a great edition. George Birkbeck Hill was the most celebrated nineteenth-century Samuel Johnson scholar. His edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson may be his chef d'oeuvre but his edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets is not far behind it. It is a work of enduring scholarship which only recently has had to take second place to Roger Lonsdale's magnificent edition. Contents of Volume I: Cowley, Denham, Milton, Butler, Rochester, Roscommon, Otway, Waller, Pomfret, Dorset, Stepney, J. Philips, Walsh, Dryden. Contents of Volume II: Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Halifax, Parnell, Garth, Rowe, Addison, Hughes, Sheffield, Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Fenton, Gay, Granville, Yalden, Tickell, Hammond. Somervile, Savage. Contents of Volume III: Swift, Broome, Pope, Pitt, Thomson, Watts, A.Philips, West, Collins, Dyer, Shenstone, Young, Mallet, Akenside, Gray, Lyttelton.

'I am engaged to write little Lives, and little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets.' So wrote Samuel Johnson to James Boswell. Such understatement! It is difficult to believe he is writing about about what Walter Jackson Bate has described as 'one of the masterpieces in the history of both biography and literary criticism.' The occasion for the work was humdrum enough. It was conceived as a countermove, by thirty-six leading London booksellers and publishers, to an 'invasion of what we call our Literary Property.' In other words, a Scottish firm, the Apollo Press, were already publishing pocket-size volumes in a series called The British Poets. Samuel Johnson was recruited to provide the apparatus for the London equivalent. From the very first life - Abraham Cowley - is was clear he was going to do much more than that. Johnson was at the height of his powers, and this was a peculiarly congenial task. In all, he wrote fifty-two lives. He was paid a mere 200 guineas. He didn't grumble saying instead, 'The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but I have written too much.' Of this great work T. S. Eliot wrote, 'Considering all the temptations to which one is exposed in judging contemporary writing, all the prejudices which one is tempted to indulge in judging writers of the immediately preceding generation, I view Johnson's Lives of the Poets as a masterpiece of the judicial bench.' Faber Finds, in the year that celebrates the 300th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's birth, is reissuing a great work in a great edition. George Birkbeck Hill was the most celebrated nineteenth-century Samuel Johnson scholar. His edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson may be his chef d'oeuvre but his edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets is not far behind it. It is a work of enduring scholarship which only recently has had to take second place to Roger Lonsdale's magnificent edition. Contents of Volume I: Cowley, Denham, Milton, Butler, Rochester, Roscommon, Otway, Waller, Pomfret, Dorset, Stepney, J. Philips, Walsh, Dryden. Contents of Volume II: Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Halifax, Parnell, Garth, Rowe, Addison, Hughes, Sheffield, Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Fenton, Gay, Granville, Yalden, Tickell, Hammond. Somervile, Savage. Contents of Volume III: Swift, Broome, Pope, Pitt, Thomson, Watts, A.Philips, West, Collins, Dyer, Shenstone, Young, Mallet, Akenside, Gray, Lyttelton.

'I am engaged to write little Lives, and little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets.' So wrote Samuel Johnson to James Boswell. Such understatement! It is difficult to believe he is writing about about what Walter Jackson Bate has described as 'one of the masterpieces in the history of both biography and literary criticism.' The occasion for the work was humdrum enough. It was conceived as a countermove, by thirty-six leading London booksellers and publishers, to an 'invasion of what we call our Literary Property.' In other words, a Scottish firm, the Apollo Press, were already publishing pocket-size volumes in a series called The British Poets. Samuel Johnson was recruited to provide the apparatus for the London equivalent. From the very first life - Abraham Cowley - is was clear he was going to do much more than that. Johnson was at the height of his powers, and this was a peculiarly congenial task. In all, he wrote fifty-two lives. He was paid a mere 200 guineas. He didn't grumble saying instead, 'The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but I have written too much.' Of this great work T. S. Eliot wrote, 'Considering all the temptations to which one is exposed in judging contemporary writing, all the prejudices which one is tempted to indulge in judging writers of the immediately preceding generation, I view Johnson's Lives of the Poets as a masterpiece of the judicial bench.' Faber Finds, in the year that celebrates the 300th anniversary of Samuel Johnson's birth, is reissuing a great work in a great edition. George Birkbeck Hill was the most celebrated nineteenth-century Samuel Johnson scholar. His edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson may be his chef d'oeuvre but his edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets is not far behind it. It is a work of enduring scholarship which only recently has had to take second place to Roger Lonsdale's magnificent edition. Contents of Volume I: Cowley, Denham, Milton, Butler, Rochester, Roscommon, Otway, Waller, Pomfret, Dorset, Stepney, J. Philips, Walsh, Dryden. Contents of Volume II: Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Halifax, Parnell, Garth, Rowe, Addison, Hughes, Sheffield, Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Fenton, Gay, Granville, Yalden, Tickell, Hammond. Somervile, Savage. Contents of Volume III: Swift, Broome, Pope, Pitt, Thomson, Watts, A.Philips, West, Collins, Dyer, Shenstone, Young, Mallet, Akenside, Gray, Lyttelton.

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring through the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland as far west as the islands of Skye, Raasay, Coll, Mull, Inchkenneth and Iona. Both kept detailed notes of their impressions, and later published separate accounts of their journey. These works contain some of the finest pieces of travel writing ever produced: they are also magnificent historical documents as well as portraits of two extraordinary men of letters. Together they paint a vivid picture of a society which was still almost unknown to the Europe of the Enlightenment. Entertaining, profound, and marvellously readable, they are a valuable chronicle of a lost age and a fascinating people. For the first time, Ronald Black's edition brings together Johnson's and Boswell's accounts of each of the six stages of the two men's journey - Lowlands, Skye, Coll, Mull and back to the mainland. Illustrated with prints by Thomas Rowlandson, it includes a critical introduction, translations of the Latin texts and brief notes.

A one-volume collection of the prose and poetry of eighteenth-century Britain's pre-eminent lexicographer, critic, biographer, and poet Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson was eighteenth-century Britain's preeminent man of letters, and his influence endures to this day. He excelled as a moral and literary critic, biographer, lexicographer, and poet. This anthology, designed to make Johnson's essential works accessible to students and general readers, draws its texts from the definitive Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. In most cases, texts are included in full rather than excerpted. The anthology includes many essays from The Rambler and other periodicals; Rasselas; the prefaces to Johnson's Dictionary and his edition of Shakespeare; the complete Lives of Cowley, Milton, Pope, Savage, and Gray, as well as generous selections from A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Some parts are arranged thematically, allowing readers to focus on such topics as religion, marriage, war, and literature. The anthology includes a biographical introduction, and its ample annotation updates and enlarges the commentary in the YaleEdition.

'If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was.' In the last of his major writings, Samuel Johnson looked back over the previous two centuries of English Literature in order to describe the personalities as well as the achievements of the leading English poets. The major Lives - of Milton, Dryden, Swift, and Pope - are memorable cameos of the life of writing in which Johnson is as attentive to human frailty as to literary prowess. The shorter Lives preserve some of Johnson's most piercing, critical judgements. Unsentimental, opinionated, and quotable, The Lives of the Poets continues to influence the reputations of the writers concerned. It is one of the greatest works of English criticism, but also one of the most humanly diverting. This selection of the Lives of ten of the most important poets draws its text from Roger Lonsdale's authoritative complete edition. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The eighteenth century produced a remarkable array of thinkers whose influence in the development of free societies and free institutions is incalculable. Among these thinkers were Mandeville, Hutcheson, Smith, Hume, and Burke. And their time is known as the Age of Johnson. "Samuel Johnson: Political Writings" contains twenty-four of Johnson's essays on the great social, economic, and political issues of his time. These include "Taxation No Tyranny"--in which Johnson defended the British Crown against the American revolutionaries--and "An Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain," "Thoughts on the Coronation of King George III," and "The Patriot," which is one of Johnson's principal writings during the American Revolution. In his introduction, Donald J. Greene writes, "it may help to understand [Johnson's] political thinking if we view it in the tradition of what might be called 'skeptical' (or 'radical' or 'empirical') conservatism, the essential feature of which is distrust of grandiose "a priori" theory and dogma as the basis for political action." The Liberty Fund edition is a paperback version of Volume 10 in The Yale Johnson.

When Samuel Johnson unicycled around Australia, he met some awesome people. And before we had to lock down, he and his other sister, Hilde, were travelling the country talking at schools, community groups and at the side of busy streets to spread their message about how to kick cancer in the face hole. But in the process they connected and listened as people shared their own stories - not just about how cancer impacted them, but about love, fighting fires, making families out of choice not blood, knitting, being there and being surprised by life and finding solace from strangers. They decided those stories should be shared and the idea for Heroes Next Door was born. The result is a moving, funny, irreverent, inspiring and big-hearted book that shows us all that resilience and kindness are what make the difference, and that you don't have to travel far to find good people ... often they are right next door.

Lives that Never Grow Old Part of a radical new series –edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Johnson’s book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. When he first came to London, young Samuel Johnson was befriended by the flamboyant poet, playwright and blackmailer, Richard Savage. Walking the backstreets at night, he learned Savage’s extraordinary story – supposedly persecuted by a ‘cruel mother’, sentenced to death for a murder in a brothel, appointed Volunteer Poet Laureate to the Queen, and finally broken and outcast. With this moving and intimate account, Johnson created a brilliant black comedy of 18th-century Grub Street which revolutionised English biography by its psychological realism. Yet Savage’s destructive charm and delusions of grandeur sometimes even threatened to entangle Johnson himself.

In 1773, James Boswell made a long-planned journey across the Scottish Highlands with his English friend Samuel Johnson; the two spent more than a hundred days together. Their tour of the Hebrides resulted in two books, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), a kind of locodescriptive ethnography and Johnson's most important work between his Shakespeare edition and his Lives of the Poets. The other, Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson (1785), a travel narrative experimenting with biography, the first application of the techniques he would use in his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). These two works form a natural pair and, owing that they cover much of the same material, are often read together, focusing on the Scottish highlands. The text presents a lightly-edited version of both works, preserving the original orthography and corrected typographical errors to fit modern grammar standards. The introduction and notes provide clear and concise explanations on Johnson and Boswell's respective careers, their friendship and grand biographical projects. It also examines the Scottish Enlightenment, the status of England and Scotland during the Reformation through to the Union of the Crowns, and the Jacobite

‘There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect, compared with which reproach, hatred and opposition are names of happiness’

With his wit, eloquence and shrewd perception of contemporary morals, Samuel Johnson was the most versatile of Augustan writers. His dictionary, dramas and poetry established his reputation, but it was the essays published in The Rambler, The Adventurer and The Idler that demonstrated the range of his talent. Tackling ethical questions such as the importance of self-knowledge, awareness of mortality, the role of the novel, and, in a lighter vein, marriage, sleep and deceit, these brilliant and thought-provoking essays are a mirror of the time in which they were written and a testament to Johnson’s stature as the leading man of letters of his age.

This new edition contains a broad selection of essays presenting both the forcefully argued moral pieces of Johnson’s middle years and the more light-hearted essays of his later work. The introduction places the works in their historical and literary context, and there is also a chronology of Johnson’s life and times.

"It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can," Samuel Johnson declared, according to Boswell. And Boswell answered, "Do what you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities." But Johnson's letters are far more than that. Even at their most cursory and casual, they are never less than precious biographical documents, and many of them mirror, define, and re-create a vivid likeness of the most versatile writer of eighteenth-century England. With these three volumes Princeton University Press inaugurates the first scholarly edition of this remarkable material to appear in forty years--the planned five-volume series The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Known as the Hyde Edition, the project will be completed with the fourth volume, covering the years 1782 through 1784, and the fifth, containing the comprehensive index and appendices. The series as a whole will present fifty-two previously unknown letters or parts of letters that have come to light since the publication of R. W. Chapman's three-volume set (Oxford, 1952). Such "new" letters, however, are scarcely more important than those for which only inferior printed texts or copies of varying reliability had previously been recovered. The Hyde Edition offers scores of texts transcribed for the first time from the original documents--a feature of special importance in the case of Johnson's revealing letters to Hester Thrale, many of which have been available only in expurgated form. The Hyde Edition is also the first systematically to record substantive deletions, which can yield intimate knowledge of Johnson's stylistic procedures, mental habits, and chains of association. Furthermore, its ownership credits document the current disposition of the manuscripts, hundreds of which have changed hands during the last four decades. Finally, the annotation of the letters incorporates the many significant discoveries of postwar Johnsonian scholarship, as well as decoding references that had previously resisted explanation. The result is a far richer understanding of Samuel Johnson's life, work, and milieu. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can," Samuel Johnson declared, according to Boswell. And Boswell answered, "Do what you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities." But Johnson's letters are far more than that. Even at their most cursory and casual, they are never less than precious biographical documents, and many of them mirror, define, and re-create a vivid likeness of the most versatile writer of eighteenth-century England. With these three volumes Princeton University Press inaugurates the first scholarly edition of this remarkable material to appear in forty years--the planned five-volume series The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Known as the Hyde Edition, the project will be completed with the fourth volume, covering the years 1782 through 1784, and the fifth, containing the comprehensive index and appendices. The series as a whole will present fifty-two previously unknown letters or parts of letters that have come to light since the publication of R. W. Chapman's three-volume set (Oxford, 1952). Such "new" letters, however, are scarcely more important than those for which only inferior printed texts or copies of varying reliability had previously been recovered. The Hyde Edition offers scores of texts transcribed for the first time from the original documents--a feature of special importance in the case of Johnson's revealing letters to Hester Thrale, many of which have been available only in expurgated form. The Hyde Edition is also the first systematically to record substantive deletions, which can yield intimate knowledge of Johnson's stylistic procedures, mental habits, and chains of association. Furthermore, its ownership credits document the current disposition of the manuscripts, hundreds of which have changed hands during the last four decades. Finally, the annotation of the letters incorporates the many significant discoveries of postwar Johnsonian scholarship, as well as decoding references that had previously resisted explanation. The result is a far richer understanding of Samuel Johnson's life, work, and milieu.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Hyde Edition offers scores of texts transcribed for the first time from the original documents a feature of special importance in the case of Johnson's revealing letters to Hester Thrale, many of which have been available only in expurgated form. The Hyde Edition is also the first systematically to record substantive deletions, which can yield intimate knowledge of Johnson's stylistic procedures, mental habits, and chains of association. Furthermore, its ownership credits document the current disposition of the manuscripts, hundreds of which have changed hands during the last four decades. Finally, the annotation of the letters incorporates the many significant discoveries of postwar Johnsonian scholarship, as well as decoding references that had previously resisted explanation. The result is a far richer understanding of Samuel Johnson's life, work, and milieu.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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. Bruce Redford is Professor of English at the University of Chicago and the author of The Converse of the Pen: Acts of Intimacy in the Eighteenth-Century Familiar Letter (Chicago).

Originally published in 1994.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Hyde Edition offers scores of texts transcribed for the first time from the original documents a feature of special importance in the case of Johnson's revealing letters to Hester Thrale, many of which have been available only in expurgated form. The Hyde Edition is also the first systematically to record substantive deletions, which can yield intimate knowledge of Johnson's stylistic procedures, mental habits, and chains of association. Furthermore, its ownership credits document the current disposition of the manuscripts, hundreds of which have changed hands during the last four decades. Finally, the annotation of the letters incorporates the many significant discoveries of postwar Johnsonian scholarship, as well as decoding references that had previously resisted explanation. The result is a far richer understanding of Samuel Johnson's life, work, and milieu.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

'I mentioned our design to Voltaire,' wrote Boswell. 'He looked at me as if I had talked of going to the North Pole . . .' As it turned out, Johnson enjoyed their Scottish journey (although the land was not quite so wild and barbaric as perhaps he had hoped), and Boswell delighted in it. The year was 1773, they were sixty-three and thirty-two years old, and had been friends for ten years. Their journals, published together here, perfectly complement each other. Johnson's majestic prose and hawk eye for curious detail take in everything from the stone arrowheads found in the Hebrides, to the 'medicinal' waters of Loch Ness and 'the mischiefs of emigration'. Meanwhile, it is very lucky that as Johnson was observing Scotland, Boswell was observing Johnson. His record is perceptive, highly entertaining and full of sardonic wit; for him, as for us, it is an appetizer for The Life of Johnson.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

Surprising, colorful, and long-forgotten entries from the most famous dictionary in the history of the English language
Samuel Johnson's best-known work, "A Dictionary of the English Language" (1755), is the most influential and idiosyncratic lexicon ever written and was used by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, the Bront's and the Brownings, Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. This anthology includes 4,000 of the most representative, entertaining, and historically fascinating entries, covering subjects from fashion to food, science to sex, and given in full with original spelling and examples of usage from Shakespeare to Milton.

If you could tell your dad anything, what would it be? Steve Waugh, Trent Dalton, Samuel Johnson, Kathy Lette, John Williamson, Susie Youssef, Michala Banas, Glenn Shorrock, Matilda Brown, Joel Creasey, Shannon Noll, Michelle Law, Ben Gillies, Hilde Hinton, Normie Rowe, Mark Brandi, Brian Mannix, Julie Koh, Sara Storer, Russell Morris, Catherine Deveny, Sophie Green, Brooke Davis, Toni Tapp Coutts, Clare Wright, Danny Green, John Paul Young, Kurt Fearnley and many more ... A heartfelt, honest and very human book of letters that will make you smile and make you cry. It is the perfect gift for the dad in your life. And a reminder to say how you feel before it is too late.