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 Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Joan Aiken
This book is a prequel to some of its predecessors. Brazil in South America (here called New Cumbria in Roman America) is another transformation of actuality, ruled over by the sinister Queen Ginevra. Dido arrives...
Literary responses Anne Askew
Knowledge of AA 's writing spread rapidly. The reactionary Stephen Gardiner , Bishop of Winchester, complained on 6 June 1547 of the number of copies in circulation.
Beilin, Elaine V., and Anne Askew. “Introduction”. The Examinations of Anne Askew, Oxford University Press.
xxviii-xxix
John Foxe gave it a still wider...
Textual Production Margaret Atwood
Payback opened a new seam in Atwood's continuing output of journalism. Her essay Our faith is fraying in the god of money, in the Financial Times of 13 April 2012, tellingly applies a passage...
Intertextuality and Influence Jane Austen
She applies to her friend a remark about Samuel Johnson from Boswell 's Life: that her death left no-one living who resembled her.
Austen, Jane. Minor Works. Editor Chapman, Robert William, Oxford University Press.
440-2
Leisure and Society Joanna Baillie
In the earlier 1840s, however, she was still a keen reader. She tackled the first edition of Frances Burney 's Diary and Letters out of a desire to get some insight into the literary society...
Textual Production Beryl Bainbridge
BB published another historical novel, According to Queeney, about Hester Thrale and Samuel Johnson , whose narrative sticks unusually close to its sources.
Eilenberg, Susan. “Leaf, Button, Dog”. London Review of Books, pp. 13-15.
13
Occupation Beryl Bainbridge
BB was a striking and accomplished visual artist, though she tended to speak slightingly of her own work. Early in her marriage to Austin Davies she exhibited her work alongside his.
King, Brendan. Beryl Bainbridge. Bloomsbury .
197
She began a...
Performance of text Beryl Bainbridge
In a spin-off from According to Queeney, BB wrote a theatre sketch about Johnson and Thrale , with music, which she and Richard Ingrams performed together at Stoke-on-Trent on 15 August 2002.
King, Brendan. Beryl Bainbridge. Bloomsbury .
463-4
Intertextuality and Influence Anne Bannerman
The contents included odes, sonnets (including one sequence from Petrarch and another based on Goethe 's Werther, in which she speaks as the male lover of a woman, with notes relating her poems to...
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
Anna Aikin's allegory The Hill of Science seems both to derive from and to comment on Johnson 's Vision of Theodore, while her On Romances is a piece of literary criticism in a pastiche...
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
Excellent reviews included William Woodfall decisively classifying the sister as of a higher genius than the brother.
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
113
Johnson (a frequent target of parodists) thought ALB 's the best imitation of him that he had...
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
The Critical Review gave high praise to each of the series. So did the Monthly, which also cracked her anonymity from the beginning.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
46 (1778): 160; 47 (1779): 320
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
191-2
Vulnerable as a Dissenter,...
Textual Features Anna Letitia Barbauld
Here ALB achieves a note of near-tragic dignity in face of political defeat—a note reminiscent of the weight and complexity of Johnson 's satires or of the recognition of defeat in her own Corsica.
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
Recently William McCarthy has pronounced this poem seldom matched for conceptual density. (He cites as its peers in this respect Johnson 's The Vanity of Human Wishes and Ann Yearsley 's Addressed to Ignorance.)
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
475
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Letitia Barbauld
The collection includes her Biographical Account of That Author, and Observations on His Writings, her longest single extant work, Johnsonian in manner, taking a critical attitude towards its sources. Her editorial alterations were extremely...

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.
52
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...

Writing climate item

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...

Building item

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...

Building item

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...

Building item

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.