Samuel Johnson

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Standard Name: Johnson, Samuel
Used Form: Dr Johnson
Arriving in eighteenth-century London as one more young literary hopeful from the provinces, SJ achieved such a name for himself as an arbiter of poetry, of morality (through his Rambler and other periodical essays and his prose fiction Rasselas), of the language (the Dictionary), and of the literary canon (his edition of Shakespeare and the Lives of the English Poets) that literary history has often typecast him as hidebound and authoritarian. This idea has been facilitated by his ill-mannered conversational dominance in his late years and by the portrait of him drawn by the hero-worshipping Boswell . In fact he was remarkable for his era in seeing literature as a career open to the talented without regard to gender. From his early-established friendships with Elizabeth Carter and Charlotte Lennox to his mentorship of Hester Thrale , Frances Burney , and (albeit less concentratedly) of Mary Wollstonecraft and Henrietta Battier , it was seldom that he crossed the path of a woman writer without friendly and relatively egalitarian encouragement.

Connections

Connections Sort ascending Author name Excerpt
Wealth and Poverty Ellis Cornelia Knight
After her father died in late 1775, while ECK and her mother were spending the winter in London, Lady Knight applied for a widow's pension from the Crown, in a petition drawn up by Dr Johnson
Wealth and Poverty William Congreve
WC was blamed (for instance, by Samuel Johnson in his Lives of the Poets) for leaving a substantial sum of money to the already wealthy duchess although he had needy relations. But the money...
Wealth and Poverty Frances Reynolds
FR was to all appearances dependent on her brother for money. He enjoyed the use of his self-made wealth, and commissioned, for instance, a particularly eye-catching carriage, heavily carved and gilded, with the four seasons...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anne Grant
These letters were calculated to contribute to Steuart 's projected but never written book on Jacobite attempts on the throne between the Glorious Revolution and the Rebellion of 1745. They include some comment on women's...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins
This work has been valued chiefly for its anecdotes of Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds . LMH closes the volume on the name of Reynolds (printed in honorific capitals), in an implicit tribute to...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins
This work extends and deepens the pictures given in her first book of reminiscences both of Johnson and his circle and of other people including women writers. LMH expresses admiration for Hester Piozzi 's letter...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anne Grant
As the title implies, this was written on the model of Anna Letitia Barbauld 's Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, though it also rebukes what AG would have seen as Barbauld's defeatism and failure of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Muriel Jaeger
This book is sometimes called a memoir, but its autobiographical moments are only incidental. MJ 's attention is mostly directed towards books and reading; her own experiences of writing, publishing, and having her works performed...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Frances Burney
Among the pleasures of FB 's life-writing are the way it revels in nonce-words and other innovative uses of language, and the play it makes with dramatic techniques like scene-setting and dialogue. Many famous passages...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Samuel Beckett
As it stands it focusses less on Thrale than on Anna Williams and the other women actually resident in Johnson 's household.
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Ellis Cornelia Knight
ECK relates her experiences at the English and at various European courts, and includes sketches and anecdotes of famous people she knew, including those of an earlier generation like Samuel Johnson and Frances Reynolds ...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Geraldine Jewsbury
Zoe reflects GJ 's own lifelong spiritual crisis.
Bloom, Abigail Burnham, editor. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Greenwood Press.
223-4
Susanne Howe notes that it anticipates later novels by Mary Augusta Ward and J. A. Froude , which also deal with spiritual doubt.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin.
72
Beginning in...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Montagu
The patriotic element in EM 's reading of Shakespeare is crucial. She magisterially rebukes Voltaire's view of her admired author as having been primitive and unpolished, and seeks to outmanoeuvre the prestige of the French...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Moody
Personal matters mingle with others of public or topical interest, as EM addresses Joseph Priestley on the inter-relation of matter and spirit, Marie Antoinette on her sufferings before her execution, and Dr Thomas Huet on...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text John Oliver Hobbes
JOH sometimes discusses her own writing, career, and ambition: One's place in literature is a possession—never a concession. And one knows one's place. I don't wish to be judged—one way or the other—till I am...

Timeline

Probably 14 March 1646: Sir Thomas Browne published his Pseudodoxia...

Writing climate item

Probably 14 March 1646

Sir Thomas Browne published his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a giant compendium of popular misconceptions and antique thinking,
Hitchings, Henry. “Samuel Johnson and Sir Thomas Browne”. New Rambler, pp. 46-56.
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which, paradoxically, perpetuated many of the superstitions it contradicted.

1723: Dr Thomas Bray, who had founded the Society...

National or international item

1723

Dr Thomas Bray , who had founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge , used a bequest from a Dutch secretary to William III to found Dr Bray's Associates , an organization supporting parochial libraries...

20 January 1724: Elizabeth Harrison wrote for publication,...

Women writers item

20 January 1724

Elizabeth Harrison wrote for publication, with her name, A Letter to Mr. John Gay , On his Tragedy, call'd The Captives. To which is annex'd a copy of verses to the Princess.

1752: A pseudonymous M. Ludovicus argued explicitly...

Building item

1752

A pseudonymous M. Ludovicus argued explicitly that poverty drives women to prostitution, and that shelters should be provided to help them leave the trade.

7 November 1752-9 March 1754: The self-educated John Hawkesworth edited...

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7 November 1752-9 March 1754

The self-educated John Hawkesworth edited and published an essay-periodical called the Adventurer, on the model of Johnson 's Rambler.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

18 March 1755: There was published at London an anthology...

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18 March 1755

There was published at London an anthology entitled The Matrimonial Preceptor: A Collection of Examples and Precepts Relating to the Married State.

May 1756: The Literary Magazine: or, Universal Review...

Writing climate item

May 1756

The Literary Magazine: or, Universal Review (often known as the Literary Review) began publication in London; Samuel Johnson was a contributor and, for the first four issues, the editor.

Probably 1758: Stenography, or Short-Hand Improved, by John...

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Probably 1758

Stenography, or Short-Hand Improved, by John Angell the elder , appeared, with a prefatory dedication which has been ascribed to Samuel Johnson .

1 December 1759: John Hawkesworth in turn adapted Thomas Southerne's...

Building item

1 December 1759

John Hawkesworth in turn adapted Thomas Southerne 's dramatic adaptation of Aphra Behn 's Oroonoko, making it for the first time a solidly anti-slavery text.

By June 1766: James Fordyce anonymously printed his Sermons...

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By June 1766

James Fordyce anonymously printed his Sermons to Young Women. It went through ninety-five British reprints by 1850, plus half as many again in the USA.

15-21 June 1772: A series of London banking firms collapsed...

National or international item

15-21 June 1772

A series of London banking firms collapsed after the bank associated with Alexander Fordyce stopped payment; ensuing panic brought the biggest stock-market crash since the South Sea Bubble burst in late 1720.

11 April 1773: Boswell asked Johnson the reason why women...

Building item

11 April 1773

Boswell asked Johnson the reason why women servants were paid so much less than men, although the opposite would seem to reflect natural justice; Johnson had no answer.

21 February 1774: The House of Lords decision Donaldson vs....

Writing climate item

21 February 1774

The House of Lords decision Donaldson vs. Becket put an end to the legality (based in common law) of perpetual copyright. The case was provoked by the pirating activities of Alexander Donaldson .

By March 1774: Warren Hastings became the first English...

National or international item

By March 1774

Warren Hastings became the first English Governor-General of India.

8 February 1777: The first volume appeared in Edinburgh of...

Writing climate item

8 February 1777

The first volume appeared in Edinburgh of Hugh Blair 's five volumes of exquisitely sentimental
Buchan, James. “That sh—te Creech”. London Review of Books, pp. 13-14.
13
and extraordinarily popular
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Sermons. London publication followed on 15 April.

Texts

Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language. Knapton, 1755.
Johnson, Samuel. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1775.
Johnson, Samuel. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Editor Lascelles, Mary Madge, Yale University Press; Oxford University Press, 1971.
Lobo, Jeronimo. A Voyage to Abyssinia. Translator Johnson, Samuel, A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, 1735.
Johnson, Samuel. Diaries, Prayers, and Annals. Editors McAdam, Edward Lippincott et al., Yale University Press and Oxford University Press, 1960.
Bate, Walter Jackson et al., editors. “Introduction”. The Rambler, Yale Edition, Yale University Press, 1969, p. xxi - xlii.
Bronson, Bertrand H., and Samuel Johnson. “Introduction”. Johnson on Shakespeare, edited by Arthur Sherbo and Arthur Sherbo, Yale Edition, Yale University Press, 1975, p. xiii - xxxviii.
Gold, Joel J., and Jeronimo Lobo. “Introduction”. A Voyage to Abyssinia, translated by. Samuel Johnson, The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, Yale University Press, 1985, p. xxiii - lviii.
Johnson, Samuel. “Introduction”. The Lives of the Poets, edited by Roger Lonsdale, Clarendon Press, 2006, pp. 1: 1 - 185.
Johnson, Samuel. Lives of the English Poets. Editor Hill, George Birkbeck, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.
Johnson, Samuel, and Arthur Waugh. Lives of the English Poets. Oxford University Press, 1973.
Johnson, Samuel. London. R. Dodsley, 1738.
Johnson, Samuel. Poems. Editors McAdam, Edward Lippincott and George Milne, Yale University Press, 1964.
Johnson, Samuel. Political Writings. Editor Greene, Donald, Yale University Press, 1977.
Johnson, Samuel. Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets. C. Bathurst et al., 1781.
Johnson, Samuel. Samuel Johnson: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Editor Greene, Donald, Oxford University Press, 1984.
Johnson, Samuel. Sermons. Editors Hagstrum, Jean and James Gray, Yale University Press, 1978.
Johnson, Samuel. Sir Joshua’s Nephew. Editor Radcliffe, Susan M., John Murray, 1930.
Johnson, Samuel. The Idler; and, The Adventurer. Editors Bate, Walter Jackson et al., Yale University Press, 1969.
Johnson, Samuel, and Hester Lynch Piozzi. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Chapman, Robert William, Clarendon Press, 1984.
Johnson, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Redford, Bruce, Princeton University Press, 1994.
Johnson, Samuel. The Life of Mr Richard Savage. Printed for J. Roberts, 1744.
Johnson, Samuel. The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. C. Bathurst, J. Buckland, W. Strahan, et. al., 1781, http://SpCol PR 553 J67 1781.
Johnson, Samuel. The Lives of the Poets. Editor Lonsdale, Roger, Clarendon Press, 2006.
Shakespeare, William. The Plays of William Shakespeare. Editor Johnson, Samuel, Vol.
8 vols.
, Printed for J. and R. Tonson, 1765.