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The Life of Samuel Johnson
Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer.
Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail. This irrepressible Scotsman was 'always studying human nature and making experiments', and the marvelously vivacious Journals he wrote daily furnished him with first-rate material when he came to write his biography.
The result is a masterpiece that brims over with wit, anecdote and originality. Hailed by Macaulay as the best biography ever written and by Carlyle as a book 'beyond any other product of the eighteenth century', The Life of Samuel Johnson today continues to enjoy its status as a classic of the language.
This shortened version is based on the 1799 edition, the last in which the author had a hand.
1344 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1790
About the author
James Boswell
1,507 books96 followersJames Boswell, 10th Laird of Auchinleck and 1st Baronet was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck and his wife Euphemia Erskine, Lady Auchinleck. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. Boswell, who is best known as Samuel Johnson’s biographer, inherited his father’s estate Auchinleck in Ayrshire. His name has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer.
Boswell is also known for the detailed and frank journals that he wrote for long periods of his life, which remained undiscovered until the 1920s. These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently, of his tour of Scotland with Johnson. His journals also record meetings and conversations with eminent individuals belonging to The Club, including Lord Monboddo, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith. His written works focus chiefly on others, but he was admitted as a good companion and accomplished conversationalist in his own right.
Boswell is also known for the detailed and frank journals that he wrote for long periods of his life, which remained undiscovered until the 1920s. These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently, of his tour of Scotland with Johnson. His journals also record meetings and conversations with eminent individuals belonging to The Club, including Lord Monboddo, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith. His written works focus chiefly on others, but he was admitted as a good companion and accomplished conversationalist in his own right.
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July 21, 2013
This is a book which is not about a thing but is the thing itself. I think there’s a complicated German philosophical term for that.
In the history books they will tell you Samuel Johnson is dead these 200 years, but I say No Sir. He’s alive, here, right here. He’s walking and talking and wringing the necks of fools right here.
In this book’s oceanic vastness of pages Boswell the drunk, the fool, the butt of japes, the ignoble toady, creates the reality tv of 18th century London. There are verbatim conversations, many of them, whole eveningsworths of them. If Bozzy had had a camcorder he’d have done that but he didn’t so he invented his own version of shorthand and made excuses every half an hour or so during the boisterous hours of high-powered debate with SJ & his pals and nipped off to the lavatory where he scribbled his hieroglyphs on his cuff or on a napkin. Like any reality tv show you get sucked into that world, so that even the boring bits are interesting. It helps that the language is so thrillingly grandiloquent and the people so piquant, so flavoursome.
Oh yes, even thought this biography is as long as Lord of the Rings, there are various bits that Bozzy didn’t dare include, but that.s okay, he wrote them all down in his journals, which 150 years later were all published for our delectation, so you can get hold of everything. Such as the question of Samuel Johnson’s sex life :
Excerpt from Boswell’s journal published as “The Applause of the Jury”
LONDON, 20th April 1783
LOWE. I do not believe his marriage was consummated.
BOSWELL. Do you know, ma’am, that there really was a connexion between him and his wife? You understand me.
MRS DESMOULINS. Yes, yes sir. Nay, Garrick knew it was consummated, for he peeped through the keyhole, and behaved like a rascal, for he made the Doctor ridiculous all over the country by describing him running around the bed after she had lain down, and crying “I’m coming, my Tetsie, I’m coming, my Tetsie!”
In Life of Johnson, this is rendered into more acceptable language:
In particular the young rogues used to listen at the door of his bed-chamber, and peep through the keyhole, that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar appellation Tetsie
When Johnson was alive, he was something of a one-man industry all by himself (Dictionary, Shakespeare, Rasselas, Idler, Rambler, Lives of Poets) and after he was dead it seems every other person in literary London wrote a book about him. There were two biographies before Boswell's, and his publishers were kind of anxious - "Come on Bozzy, you're being scooped here, let's get your book out and cash in while people still aren't sick of the name of the great Doctor" But Boswell was supremely confident in what he'd got, which was this book. He waited seven years to publish this Life, and when he did, everyone knew what it was : a masterpiece of world literature.
But : this may be a little distressing, but when you have finished Boswell’s 1350 pages, you will probably then need to read an actual biography of Samuel Johnson, which, remarkably, this book really isn’t. Because it’s so Boz-centric, because Boswell knew what he had (the goods) and it made him a lazy arse who couldn’t be bothered to find stuff out if he had to work for it. Because what had happened was that Boswell was a major SJ fan and wangled a meeting with SJ when he was 22 and SJ was 54. He got SJ to like him, he was a real groupie, but he lived in Scotland. So from age 54 until SJ died, i.e. another 20 years, Bozzy would use his two weeks of holidays to visit London and be with SJ. And those are the days and evenings we get in minute detail in this book. The first 54 years are written about with verve but with an obvious desire to crack on to the bit where Boswell himself enters the story. Boswell finds himself very interesting too.
You could really go mental if you want with all this stuff. You could read this vast thing, then you could read all of Boswell's journals - about twelve volumes. then you could read Johnson's account of A Journey to the Western isles of Scotland, then Boswell's version of the same trip, called Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides. Then as a corrective to all that, you could read Young Samuel Johnson by James Clifford, which is brilliant, and wind up with John Wain's magnificent actual biography of SJ.
You could also throw in Mrs Thrale's memoir too, which contains lots of gems, such as
ON SCOTLAND
A friend of that nation, at his return from the Hebrides, asked him what he thought of his country. “That is a very vile country to be sure, Sir.” “Well, Sir”, replies the other, somewhat mortified, “God made it.”
“Certainly he did” (answers Mr Johnson) “but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen.”
ON THE POOR
AN ACQUAINTANCE OF DR JOHNSON : "What signifies giving halfpence to common beggars? They only lay it out in gin or tobacco.”
Note : this question is still brilliantly contemporary, people say it every time they pass a modern day beggar except gin or tobacco has become Diamond White and drugs. I myself have said this.
“DR JOHNSON : And why should they be denied such sweeteners of existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own existence. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer”
You could go on, and indeed, I would urge that you do, because, all disclaimers aside, I think you'll have a great time.
In the history books they will tell you Samuel Johnson is dead these 200 years, but I say No Sir. He’s alive, here, right here. He’s walking and talking and wringing the necks of fools right here.
In this book’s oceanic vastness of pages Boswell the drunk, the fool, the butt of japes, the ignoble toady, creates the reality tv of 18th century London. There are verbatim conversations, many of them, whole eveningsworths of them. If Bozzy had had a camcorder he’d have done that but he didn’t so he invented his own version of shorthand and made excuses every half an hour or so during the boisterous hours of high-powered debate with SJ & his pals and nipped off to the lavatory where he scribbled his hieroglyphs on his cuff or on a napkin. Like any reality tv show you get sucked into that world, so that even the boring bits are interesting. It helps that the language is so thrillingly grandiloquent and the people so piquant, so flavoursome.
Oh yes, even thought this biography is as long as Lord of the Rings, there are various bits that Bozzy didn’t dare include, but that.s okay, he wrote them all down in his journals, which 150 years later were all published for our delectation, so you can get hold of everything. Such as the question of Samuel Johnson’s sex life :
Excerpt from Boswell’s journal published as “The Applause of the Jury”
LONDON, 20th April 1783
LOWE. I do not believe his marriage was consummated.
BOSWELL. Do you know, ma’am, that there really was a connexion between him and his wife? You understand me.
MRS DESMOULINS. Yes, yes sir. Nay, Garrick knew it was consummated, for he peeped through the keyhole, and behaved like a rascal, for he made the Doctor ridiculous all over the country by describing him running around the bed after she had lain down, and crying “I’m coming, my Tetsie, I’m coming, my Tetsie!”
In Life of Johnson, this is rendered into more acceptable language:
In particular the young rogues used to listen at the door of his bed-chamber, and peep through the keyhole, that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar appellation Tetsie
When Johnson was alive, he was something of a one-man industry all by himself (Dictionary, Shakespeare, Rasselas, Idler, Rambler, Lives of Poets) and after he was dead it seems every other person in literary London wrote a book about him. There were two biographies before Boswell's, and his publishers were kind of anxious - "Come on Bozzy, you're being scooped here, let's get your book out and cash in while people still aren't sick of the name of the great Doctor" But Boswell was supremely confident in what he'd got, which was this book. He waited seven years to publish this Life, and when he did, everyone knew what it was : a masterpiece of world literature.
But : this may be a little distressing, but when you have finished Boswell’s 1350 pages, you will probably then need to read an actual biography of Samuel Johnson, which, remarkably, this book really isn’t. Because it’s so Boz-centric, because Boswell knew what he had (the goods) and it made him a lazy arse who couldn’t be bothered to find stuff out if he had to work for it. Because what had happened was that Boswell was a major SJ fan and wangled a meeting with SJ when he was 22 and SJ was 54. He got SJ to like him, he was a real groupie, but he lived in Scotland. So from age 54 until SJ died, i.e. another 20 years, Bozzy would use his two weeks of holidays to visit London and be with SJ. And those are the days and evenings we get in minute detail in this book. The first 54 years are written about with verve but with an obvious desire to crack on to the bit where Boswell himself enters the story. Boswell finds himself very interesting too.
You could really go mental if you want with all this stuff. You could read this vast thing, then you could read all of Boswell's journals - about twelve volumes. then you could read Johnson's account of A Journey to the Western isles of Scotland, then Boswell's version of the same trip, called Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides. Then as a corrective to all that, you could read Young Samuel Johnson by James Clifford, which is brilliant, and wind up with John Wain's magnificent actual biography of SJ.
You could also throw in Mrs Thrale's memoir too, which contains lots of gems, such as
ON SCOTLAND
A friend of that nation, at his return from the Hebrides, asked him what he thought of his country. “That is a very vile country to be sure, Sir.” “Well, Sir”, replies the other, somewhat mortified, “God made it.”
“Certainly he did” (answers Mr Johnson) “but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen.”
ON THE POOR
AN ACQUAINTANCE OF DR JOHNSON : "What signifies giving halfpence to common beggars? They only lay it out in gin or tobacco.”
Note : this question is still brilliantly contemporary, people say it every time they pass a modern day beggar except gin or tobacco has become Diamond White and drugs. I myself have said this.
“DR JOHNSON : And why should they be denied such sweeteners of existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own existence. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer”
You could go on, and indeed, I would urge that you do, because, all disclaimers aside, I think you'll have a great time.
April 16, 2021
Someone at the time – I think it was Anna Letitia Barbauld – said that reading the Life of Johnson was like taking a walk in Ranelagh pleasure gardens: everyone you knew was there. That remains the best reason for reading it: the book is a bit like a huge chunk of amber, in which a slice of eighteenth-century London has been perfectly preserved, in all its chaotic splendour.
And this is just as well, since although the Life tells you a great deal about what Johnson was like, it doesn't actually tell you much about, well, his life. Boswell hurtles through Johnson's first fifty-three years in just 250 pages – or to put it another way, knocks out 70 percent of his subject's life in the first 18 percent of the biography. Boswell simply could not give a shit about the early years, which he wasn't there to see. As far as he was concerned, his own life began on the fateful day in 1763 when he met his hero, and that's when his Life really gets underway.
From then on, the pace drops to an unbelievable level of detail, with Boswell showing (as he admits) an ‘almost superstitious reverence’ for preserving everything his subject ever wrote or said in his presence, no matter how seemingly trivial. Thank-you letters, new year's resolutions, assorted prayers, comments on obscure court cases – a place is found here for all of them. It's a wonder that so much of it is as interesting as it is. But Boswell had found the subject of a lifetime, and Johnson emerges here in all his often grotesque detail, to demand attention. He must have been a striking figure – very tall for his time, with a shambling walk and a strong West Midlands accent, he dressed shabbily and was constantly in motion with a variety of tics and convulsive articulations:
But he delivered his views with flair and aggression, preferring to argue against whatever everyone else was saying. Underneath his love of contradiction, his outlook was dominated by several settled opinions: Toryism, monarchism, High-Church piety, a hatred of democracy and republicanism, a love of classical quotation. In many cases, he and his biographer were on different sides of these issues: Johnson condemned the slave trade, while Boswell defended it; Boswell was a supporter of the American revolution, whereas Johnson was not (‘Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging’).
It was already clear that his fame would rest above all on his Dictionary, which really was a monumental achievement. Boswell gathers a lot of the discussions from the early days of that project, which are fascinating:
As this shows, Johnson could often be witty (generally at others' expense). However, he hated to be the butt of a joke, and was extremely sensitive to any hint that someone might be making fun of him, in print, on the stage, or in conversation. Boswell tells a wonderful story about Johnson making a passing reference, in mixed company, to an acquaintance's wife, and concluding that
His religiosity, which Boswell takes great pains to stress, is perhaps the more surprising for how little consolation it seems to have brought him. In fact, it was rather the opposite: he was utterly terrified by thoughts of death right until the end, and often in fits of anxiety about divine punishment. Even at the time, this was taking things a bit more literally than was considered proper. ‘I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned,’ he said, at one dinner-party in his seventies. ‘What do you mean by damned?’ one of his fellow diners asked timidly. Johnson barked back, ‘Sent to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly!’ This lent a moody cast to much of his character:
…although this did not seem to make him any more sympathetic to the miseries of others. When Boswell is going through one of his own periodic bouts of depression, Johnson writes to say: ‘Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk, and I hate to hear.’ Gee, thanks. You get the impression that Johnson was often heartily sick of Boswell's fawning attention, which Boswell often carried so far as to hover right behind Johnson's chair while in company, so that he never missed a choice bon mot.
The results of this obsession are exhaustive, not to say exhausting. The level of detail almost puts you in mind of an early AI experiment, where the accumulation of data seems designed to reproduce an entire personality in textual form. ‘The character of Samuel Johnson has, I trust, been so developed in the course of this work,’ Boswell says at the end, ‘that they who have honoured it with a perusal, may be considered as well acquainted with him.’ Others who read it agreed, including plenty who had no love for Boswell.
If you just want an introduction to these people and this time, Leo Damrosch's The Club may be a better choice; while a shorter (and often more entertaining) contemporary biography showing London society is JT Smith's vicious Nollekens And His Times. But this is something else, a kind of genus unto itself. Perhaps ironically, almost no one reads Johnson himself anymore; he is famous for being a subject of someone else's book. But like Socrates in Plato, he looms out of it with enough presence to tower over his student, and indeed the rest of his contemporaries too. He is bigger than the amber that preserves him; it's a neat trick.
And this is just as well, since although the Life tells you a great deal about what Johnson was like, it doesn't actually tell you much about, well, his life. Boswell hurtles through Johnson's first fifty-three years in just 250 pages – or to put it another way, knocks out 70 percent of his subject's life in the first 18 percent of the biography. Boswell simply could not give a shit about the early years, which he wasn't there to see. As far as he was concerned, his own life began on the fateful day in 1763 when he met his hero, and that's when his Life really gets underway.
From then on, the pace drops to an unbelievable level of detail, with Boswell showing (as he admits) an ‘almost superstitious reverence’ for preserving everything his subject ever wrote or said in his presence, no matter how seemingly trivial. Thank-you letters, new year's resolutions, assorted prayers, comments on obscure court cases – a place is found here for all of them. It's a wonder that so much of it is as interesting as it is. But Boswell had found the subject of a lifetime, and Johnson emerges here in all his often grotesque detail, to demand attention. He must have been a striking figure – very tall for his time, with a shambling walk and a strong West Midlands accent, he dressed shabbily and was constantly in motion with a variety of tics and convulsive articulations:
while talking or even musing as he sat in his chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometime protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, too, too, too: all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile.
But he delivered his views with flair and aggression, preferring to argue against whatever everyone else was saying. Underneath his love of contradiction, his outlook was dominated by several settled opinions: Toryism, monarchism, High-Church piety, a hatred of democracy and republicanism, a love of classical quotation. In many cases, he and his biographer were on different sides of these issues: Johnson condemned the slave trade, while Boswell defended it; Boswell was a supporter of the American revolution, whereas Johnson was not (‘Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging’).
It was already clear that his fame would rest above all on his Dictionary, which really was a monumental achievement. Boswell gathers a lot of the discussions from the early days of that project, which are fascinating:
Aᴅᴀᴍs. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? Jᴏʜɴsᴏɴ. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch. Aᴅᴀᴍs. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? Jᴏʜɴsᴏɴ. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. Aᴅᴀᴍs. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. Jᴏʜɴsᴏɴ. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.
As this shows, Johnson could often be witty (generally at others' expense). However, he hated to be the butt of a joke, and was extremely sensitive to any hint that someone might be making fun of him, in print, on the stage, or in conversation. Boswell tells a wonderful story about Johnson making a passing reference, in mixed company, to an acquaintance's wife, and concluding that
‘the woman had a bottom of good sense.’ The word bottom thus introduced, was so ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called out in a strong tone, ‘Where's the merriment?’ Then collecting himself, and looking aweful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, ‘I say the woman was fundamentally sensible;’ as if he had said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral.
His religiosity, which Boswell takes great pains to stress, is perhaps the more surprising for how little consolation it seems to have brought him. In fact, it was rather the opposite: he was utterly terrified by thoughts of death right until the end, and often in fits of anxiety about divine punishment. Even at the time, this was taking things a bit more literally than was considered proper. ‘I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned,’ he said, at one dinner-party in his seventies. ‘What do you mean by damned?’ one of his fellow diners asked timidly. Johnson barked back, ‘Sent to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly!’ This lent a moody cast to much of his character:
From the subject of death we passed to discourse of life, whether it was upon the whole more happy or miserable. Johnson was decidedly for the balance of misery…
…although this did not seem to make him any more sympathetic to the miseries of others. When Boswell is going through one of his own periodic bouts of depression, Johnson writes to say: ‘Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk, and I hate to hear.’ Gee, thanks. You get the impression that Johnson was often heartily sick of Boswell's fawning attention, which Boswell often carried so far as to hover right behind Johnson's chair while in company, so that he never missed a choice bon mot.
The results of this obsession are exhaustive, not to say exhausting. The level of detail almost puts you in mind of an early AI experiment, where the accumulation of data seems designed to reproduce an entire personality in textual form. ‘The character of Samuel Johnson has, I trust, been so developed in the course of this work,’ Boswell says at the end, ‘that they who have honoured it with a perusal, may be considered as well acquainted with him.’ Others who read it agreed, including plenty who had no love for Boswell.
If you just want an introduction to these people and this time, Leo Damrosch's The Club may be a better choice; while a shorter (and often more entertaining) contemporary biography showing London society is JT Smith's vicious Nollekens And His Times. But this is something else, a kind of genus unto itself. Perhaps ironically, almost no one reads Johnson himself anymore; he is famous for being a subject of someone else's book. But like Socrates in Plato, he looms out of it with enough presence to tower over his student, and indeed the rest of his contemporaries too. He is bigger than the amber that preserves him; it's a neat trick.
May 9, 2024
The Life of Samuel Johnson is many things: charming, witty, vivacious, absorbing, edifying, beautiful; part philosophy and part history, with some politics and religion on the side. It is ironic, then, that one of the few things it most definitely is not is a biography.
James Boswell was not interested in creating a record of Johnson’s life, but a portrait of his personality. As a result, Boswell rapidly plowed through the time of Johnson’s life that the two weren’t acquainted—the first fifty years—and dedicated the bulk of the book to the time that the two were friends—the last twenty years of Johnson’s life. The book is less a narrative than a collection of quotes and anecdotes. In fact, a much more accurate title of this book would be The Idle Talk of Samuel Johnson.
If a book of this format had been written by almost any other person in the history of the world, I’m sure it would be unreadable. But Boswell has such a fine knack for suggestive details, for memorable quotes, for personality quirks—in short, for all the subtle and charming details of daily life—that the book is not only readable, but compulsively readable. Boswell’s Life is a testament to the fact that the idle talk of a drawing room can be just as momentous as the ebb and flow of human history, or the thoughts of the greatest philosophers. It is a celebration of the epic in the everyday, the magnificent in the mundane.
Not to say that Johnson is either everyday or mundane. Quite the opposite: he is as great a character as any in literature. Nay, more so. Because this book was so obviously the product of a fan-boy mentality, I have no idea what Johnson the man was actually like. But Boswell’s characterization of him couldn’t be surpassed, or even equaled, by the most skillful of novelists. Accurate or not, it is damned fine writing.
What really gives fire to this otherwise mundane collection of anecdotes is Boswell’s near-insane hero worship. Every mild opinion, every offhand quip, every casual remark uttered by Johnson is treated by Boswell as gospel. His reverence for the man is boundless; and his idolatry comes through in every sentence. It’s endearing at first; almost overpowering by the end. Boswell makes the man into a myth.
Nonetheless, it is, at times, hard to see what Boswell sees in Johnson. For every piece of wisdom or wit that Johnson produces, there are three pieces of folly. He hated the Scotch, the French, the Americans—basically everyone who wasn’t both an Englishman and a Tory—all for no reason whatsoever. No good reason, anyway. He was socially, religiously, and politically conservative. He was rude, overbearing, and often closed-minded. He would argue a point that even he didn't endorse, merely to command a conversation.
And Boswell doesn’t appear very likable, either. He was servile, toadyish, and invasive. However much he may have reverenced Johnson, Boswell did not respect the man’s privacy or confidence. In fact, it sometimes felt like Boswell’s entire purpose of hanging around Johnson was to advance his own literary career; and that his idealization of Johnson was just a form of self-service, since he was connected with the deceased writer. I can’t imagine having someone like that around me, hurrying off to jot down every thing I said—not that I’m at risk for such a thing.
Besides the unpleasantness of the two principal characters, this book has other flaws. Its most notable one is its lack of organization. Boswell just moves from one quip to the next, interspersing conversations with Johnson’s letters and diary entries. Boswell was incomparable for his attention to detail; but he apparently was unable to step back and see the forest, rather than just the trees. Even Johnson’s death is rendered as a series of disconnected pieces of information, rather than a simple narrative. In short, Boswell saw life through a magnifying glass; and it’s hard to put together a map with a magnifying glass.
But this is not a book that attempts to conceal its flaws. Rather, it glories in its own imperfection. And, now that I think of it, the most important message of Boswell’s book might be this: that the greatest things in life are great precisely because of their imperfections. Boswell's Life of Johnson certainly is.
James Boswell was not interested in creating a record of Johnson’s life, but a portrait of his personality. As a result, Boswell rapidly plowed through the time of Johnson’s life that the two weren’t acquainted—the first fifty years—and dedicated the bulk of the book to the time that the two were friends—the last twenty years of Johnson’s life. The book is less a narrative than a collection of quotes and anecdotes. In fact, a much more accurate title of this book would be The Idle Talk of Samuel Johnson.
If a book of this format had been written by almost any other person in the history of the world, I’m sure it would be unreadable. But Boswell has such a fine knack for suggestive details, for memorable quotes, for personality quirks—in short, for all the subtle and charming details of daily life—that the book is not only readable, but compulsively readable. Boswell’s Life is a testament to the fact that the idle talk of a drawing room can be just as momentous as the ebb and flow of human history, or the thoughts of the greatest philosophers. It is a celebration of the epic in the everyday, the magnificent in the mundane.
Not to say that Johnson is either everyday or mundane. Quite the opposite: he is as great a character as any in literature. Nay, more so. Because this book was so obviously the product of a fan-boy mentality, I have no idea what Johnson the man was actually like. But Boswell’s characterization of him couldn’t be surpassed, or even equaled, by the most skillful of novelists. Accurate or not, it is damned fine writing.
What really gives fire to this otherwise mundane collection of anecdotes is Boswell’s near-insane hero worship. Every mild opinion, every offhand quip, every casual remark uttered by Johnson is treated by Boswell as gospel. His reverence for the man is boundless; and his idolatry comes through in every sentence. It’s endearing at first; almost overpowering by the end. Boswell makes the man into a myth.
Nonetheless, it is, at times, hard to see what Boswell sees in Johnson. For every piece of wisdom or wit that Johnson produces, there are three pieces of folly. He hated the Scotch, the French, the Americans—basically everyone who wasn’t both an Englishman and a Tory—all for no reason whatsoever. No good reason, anyway. He was socially, religiously, and politically conservative. He was rude, overbearing, and often closed-minded. He would argue a point that even he didn't endorse, merely to command a conversation.
And Boswell doesn’t appear very likable, either. He was servile, toadyish, and invasive. However much he may have reverenced Johnson, Boswell did not respect the man’s privacy or confidence. In fact, it sometimes felt like Boswell’s entire purpose of hanging around Johnson was to advance his own literary career; and that his idealization of Johnson was just a form of self-service, since he was connected with the deceased writer. I can’t imagine having someone like that around me, hurrying off to jot down every thing I said—not that I’m at risk for such a thing.
Besides the unpleasantness of the two principal characters, this book has other flaws. Its most notable one is its lack of organization. Boswell just moves from one quip to the next, interspersing conversations with Johnson’s letters and diary entries. Boswell was incomparable for his attention to detail; but he apparently was unable to step back and see the forest, rather than just the trees. Even Johnson’s death is rendered as a series of disconnected pieces of information, rather than a simple narrative. In short, Boswell saw life through a magnifying glass; and it’s hard to put together a map with a magnifying glass.
But this is not a book that attempts to conceal its flaws. Rather, it glories in its own imperfection. And, now that I think of it, the most important message of Boswell’s book might be this: that the greatest things in life are great precisely because of their imperfections. Boswell's Life of Johnson certainly is.
February 27, 2020
Whew! Nearly four months, already? The thing about insanely long books like this one (1300pp of tiny, tiny type!) is that if you have at most an hour or two to read each day, you really do live with them over time and they become almost a part of the family. You have your little spats with them, they say the most insane or embarrassing things sometimes, but deep down you feel this unbreakable connection and find that you can't do without them, and as I imagine my mom saying to us at Xmas (paraphrasing Jimmie Dale Gilmore), you're glad to see them come, and kinda glad to see them go--until they're gone, that is, and immediately you want them back again...
So no real review on this one --how is one to review a member of the family, who at times seems an entire world to you? A universe? Ahh, quote Hamlet then...
I cannot recommend this more highly, and thank our friend ATJG for goading me into it. Definitely worth coming home to, maybe one day sooner rather than later I will do just that, too.
So no real review on this one --how is one to review a member of the family, who at times seems an entire world to you? A universe? Ahh, quote Hamlet then...
HAMLET My father!--methinks I see my father.
HORATIO Where, my lord?
HAMLET In my mind's eye, Horatio.
HORATIO I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
HAMLET He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
I cannot recommend this more highly, and thank our friend ATJG for goading me into it. Definitely worth coming home to, maybe one day sooner rather than later I will do just that, too.
November 20, 2017
I walked to visit Dr. Johnson's House at 17 Gough Square, London in England on July 5, 1997 in the evening alone. I also bought this great biography there (10.99 pounds) and had since kept reading off and on till I reached its final page on November 5, 2001. I had known this book since my early teens and thus I have my own respect for Dr. Johnson for his humility with his literary brilliance as well as his fame and recognition from the Universities of Dublin and Oxford with the two honorary doctorates . This book is unabridged, therefore, it is a bit formidable to you with its 1,492 pages. You can learn a lot from his witty quotes and his various anecdotes witnessed by Boswell and his friends. I would like to recommend this ground-breaking biography to any serious reader curious of his wit, wisdom and character.
There was of course an episode, whenever I read it I can't help admiring and respecting him more as a true scholar I'm happy to know and be familiar with this biography, depicting his first encounter with young James Boswell who had longed to meet Dr. Johnson since he was one of the literary celebrities in London. And we can see how kind, humorous and formidable he was to a young stranger he had never met before from the following excerpt:
Interestingly, there is a footnote informing its readers on his humility regarding one of the most prestigious titles in the academia and beyond, as we can see from this excerpt:
In retrospect as my humble, respectful tribute to such a great man of letters, I can't help wondering why its original title has not been retained, that is, 'Life of Johnson,' instead of 'The Life of Johnson' as seen in most recent reprints nowadays since, I'm quite sure that James Boswell himself has since then decidedly opted for this unique 'Life of Johnson' (without 'The'); therefore, the literary posterity should safely follow suit and, hopefully, a growing number of Johnsonians could find the original title more aesthetically nostalgic, penetrating and professional than the transformed one (When was the definite article first added?).
There was of course an episode, whenever I read it I can't help admiring and respecting him more as a true scholar I'm happy to know and be familiar with this biography, depicting his first encounter with young James Boswell who had longed to meet Dr. Johnson since he was one of the literary celebrities in London. And we can see how kind, humorous and formidable he was to a young stranger he had never met before from the following excerpt:
At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing towards us, -- he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost, 'Look, my Lord, it comes.' I found that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from the portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after he had published his Dictionary, in the attitude of sitting in his easy chair in deep meditation, which was the first picture his friend did for him, which Sir Joshua very kindly presented to me, and from which an engraving has been made for this work. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, 'Don't tell where I come from.' -- 'From Scotland,' cried Davies roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.' I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as a pleasantry to sooth and concilliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expence of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression 'come from Scotland,' which I used on the sense of being of that country, and, as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, retorted, 'That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.' This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and apprehensive of what might come next. ... (pp. 276-278)
Interestingly, there is a footnote informing its readers on his humility regarding one of the most prestigious titles in the academia and beyond, as we can see from this excerpt:
It is remarkable that he never, so far as I know, assumed his title of Doctor, but called himself Mr. Johnson, as appears from many of his cards or notes to myself; and I have seen many from him to other persons, in which he uniformly takes that designation. I once observed on his table a letter directed to him with the addition of Esquire, and objected to it as being a designation inferiour to that of Doctor; but he checked me, and seemed pleased with it, because, as I conjectured, he liked to be sometimes taken out of the class of literary men, and to be merely genteel, ... (p. 605)
In retrospect as my humble, respectful tribute to such a great man of letters, I can't help wondering why its original title has not been retained, that is, 'Life of Johnson,' instead of 'The Life of Johnson' as seen in most recent reprints nowadays since, I'm quite sure that James Boswell himself has since then decidedly opted for this unique 'Life of Johnson' (without 'The'); therefore, the literary posterity should safely follow suit and, hopefully, a growing number of Johnsonians could find the original title more aesthetically nostalgic, penetrating and professional than the transformed one (When was the definite article first added?).
March 21, 2014
I might be too exhausted from reading the thing to write a proper review. Just holding it takes a toll on my sub-ganymedic upper body.
The first thing to note is that I'd much rather read more Boswell than read more of Johnson's letters. Boswell's writing is like that of eighteenth century philosophers: totally unselfconscious, they simply say what they mean. Later theoreticians will undermine a lot of it, and try to find latent contradictions and so on, but the fact is that most people are a pleasant enough mixture of pious fool and slatternly knave, and Boswell (and Johnson) aren't interested in dissimulating about it.
The sheer volume of anecdote here means that you'll come away with a reasonable understanding of the important men and women of the time. Goldsmith comes off wonderfully well; I'll be much more interested in seeing Gainsborough portraits than before I read it; Gibbon lurks on the fringes; Burke was glorious; Fanny Burney and Elizabeth Montagu receive nothing but praise from all of these presumably misogynistic men; Richardson was, as you'd expect, kind of a dick; Smollett kind of a dick in a way I find far more entertaining; Fielding barely gets a look it.
For all that, I admit to skimming much of the final quarter, which was more about Johnson alone than about the Age of Johnson. The anecdotes get tiresome, the letters ever duller, and Boswell effaces himself more and more.
So if you're considering reading this, do not do it the way I did: "THIS IS THE WINTER OF BOSWELL! I WILL READ IT OVER WINTER BREAK!" Because, unless you're superhuman, you won't. I finished it over Spring break instead, and even that was a bad idea. Instead, keep the book next to your bed and dip into it each night, living with Bos and Sam and co., for a year. And absolutely read this, the Womersley edited Penguin edition. It's a weightlifting session, yes, but it's also a mini-dictionary of the eighteenth century unto itself. The biographical index alone is a lifetime's scholarly work.
Now, if only Womersley would put out an abridged edition that I could carry on a bus...
The first thing to note is that I'd much rather read more Boswell than read more of Johnson's letters. Boswell's writing is like that of eighteenth century philosophers: totally unselfconscious, they simply say what they mean. Later theoreticians will undermine a lot of it, and try to find latent contradictions and so on, but the fact is that most people are a pleasant enough mixture of pious fool and slatternly knave, and Boswell (and Johnson) aren't interested in dissimulating about it.
The sheer volume of anecdote here means that you'll come away with a reasonable understanding of the important men and women of the time. Goldsmith comes off wonderfully well; I'll be much more interested in seeing Gainsborough portraits than before I read it; Gibbon lurks on the fringes; Burke was glorious; Fanny Burney and Elizabeth Montagu receive nothing but praise from all of these presumably misogynistic men; Richardson was, as you'd expect, kind of a dick; Smollett kind of a dick in a way I find far more entertaining; Fielding barely gets a look it.
For all that, I admit to skimming much of the final quarter, which was more about Johnson alone than about the Age of Johnson. The anecdotes get tiresome, the letters ever duller, and Boswell effaces himself more and more.
So if you're considering reading this, do not do it the way I did: "THIS IS THE WINTER OF BOSWELL! I WILL READ IT OVER WINTER BREAK!" Because, unless you're superhuman, you won't. I finished it over Spring break instead, and even that was a bad idea. Instead, keep the book next to your bed and dip into it each night, living with Bos and Sam and co., for a year. And absolutely read this, the Womersley edited Penguin edition. It's a weightlifting session, yes, but it's also a mini-dictionary of the eighteenth century unto itself. The biographical index alone is a lifetime's scholarly work.
Now, if only Womersley would put out an abridged edition that I could carry on a bus...
November 27, 2014
I recently included a "bucket book" in my line-up of books I am reading. These are books I really ought to have read by this time in my life, but which, alas, I have not. This book, The Life of Samuel Johnson, was the first in this roster that I have completed. Having done so, it continues to strike me as a really good idea.
Boswell mentions near the end of the book that those who took the time to read "may be considered as well acquainted with him." I think this is quite true, and gaining the acquaintance was genuinely rewarding. It was also a pleasure to run across so many of Johnson's bon mots in their original setting. Despite being such a massive book, or perhaps because of it, this was a truly rewarding read.
Boswell mentions near the end of the book that those who took the time to read "may be considered as well acquainted with him." I think this is quite true, and gaining the acquaintance was genuinely rewarding. It was also a pleasure to run across so many of Johnson's bon mots in their original setting. Despite being such a massive book, or perhaps because of it, this was a truly rewarding read.
May 3, 2014
When you major in what is called "English" at college, certain inconvenient figures present themselves. One is Ben Jonson who is inconvenient because it is so much more rewarding and taxing to spend your time on Shakespeare, although Jonson also was a major dramatist during Shakespeare's day.
Another inconvenient figure is William Blake, the poet often grouped with the "Romantics," but clearly not one of them and a study unto himself, sui generis, one of a kind. If you're going to study Blake, you have to take him on whole and in extenso, not side-by-side with anyone.
An easier figure of inconvenience in some ways, but deceptively so, is the titanic figure of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). He's inconvenient because he was protean-a poet, a lexicographer, a critic, a dramatist, an essayist, a biographer, and some things I've not doubt left out--letter-writer, for instance.
On top of all that comes the extensive biography of Johnson written by his young friend, James Boswell, which is either the best or the worst way to get to know Johnson.
For decades I decided it would be the worst way to get to know him. The Johnson I spent most time on in college was Johnson the critic of Shakespeare. Having just taken a look back what I then read, my recollection proves correct: he was an uncommonly astute, forthright, plain-spoken critic. He points out all the plot flaws in Hamlet the play, for example, without diminishing the enigmatic genius of Hamlet the character for whom the play is known.
Johnson wrote to be read and had either the self-confidence or temerity to believe that by criticizing Shakespeare for his flaws, he actually built up his strengths.
But last week I decided to take on volume 1 of Boswell on Johnson, and now I've finished it, or perhaps I should say half-finished it because, to my surprise, it ends with a huge quantity of appendices and footnotes, and I have never in my life enjoyed reading appendices, footnotes, or introductions either by some notable editor or the author himself. In one case, Nabokov's Pale Fire, I know I've cut myself out of the fun, but that's pretty much the exception. My rule is that if it's important, it's in the text; if not, not…ignore it.
The Johnson Boswell presents--and he presents him well--is exactly the sprawling figure who doesn't fit comfortably in any multi-author syllabus. He wrote for a living for decades, never stopped writing, and when it came to producing a one-author dictionary of the English language (a task for which the French or Italians would assign forty scholars), he would do that, too.
He was Addison and Steele, a bit of Pope, a Boswell himself to many other authors, and something of a Dostoevsky in that like Dostoevsky he produced his own newspapers from time to time, writing the copy from first word to last.
I don't recommend you pick up your very own copy of Boswell on Johnson unless it's been standing unread on your shelf since undegraduate days. Then perhaps you'll find value in considering the kinds of giants who once walked the earth and are very difficult to conjure in the present day.
From childhood on Johnson read, recalled what he read, and formed astute opinions about what he read. He was a principal figure in the Age of Reason, but not an idealist, with one exception. His preferred mode of analysis was from the specific to the general. He thought that gave a truer, if less sweet, account of reality. Where he wandered into idealism, it seems to me, was in his Christianity. Flummoxed by mortality, unable to puzzle out its ultimate purposes, he happily enough left the hard work of determining why we are here to God.
Today we have one literary figure who idolizes Samuel Johnson. That is Harold Bloom, who considers Johnson his guide and master. Multi-talented himself, Bloom does exhibit Johnson's astonishing erudition and productivity. Reading Bloom's book on Shakespeare, I recall, was like having an extended conversation with a better literary friend than I've had in person. I also recall how much the leading Shakespeare critics of our day hated what he'd written. Why? Because Bloom focused on character, because Bloom explored Shakespeare's language and worldview…because Bloom wouldn't bow down to the recent pseudo-scientific schools of literary criticism that have, pardon the pun, bloomed and wilted one after another over the last twenty-five years.
What I like in particular about Johnson as Boswell presents him are the following:
--He often took the opposite side of an argument not because it was his but for the fun of it;
--He was a lifelong depressive, given to deep fits of dark despair;
--He was a compulsive-obsessive: he never crossed a threshold with the wrong foot, and if he was about to, he retreated and took another shot at it;
--He had the wisdom to observe that as you grow older, your friends die off, so you better make a point of getting some new, younger friends…and quick.
--He was a loyal, generous, talkative, discursive friend;
--He was a giant of his age and regarded himself as a pygmy;
--He castigated himself for his unstructured reading habits…but made up for them by reading everything;
--He was a big, disheveled, goofy guy with tics galore who cocked his head sideways when he was making a point and upon doing so sometimes had to huff and puff to catch his breath;
--When he made a mistake, as he did in his definition of a horse's pastern, he attributed it to "ignorance," and made nothing more of it, not defensive at all;
--And he almost never shot back at someone who criticized him; he'd had his say, let them have theirs. (Never complain, never explain as Disraeli put it.)
So all this is why I call Samuel Johnson inconvenient. He was a prolific genius who took literature seriously enough to give his life to it. In literary studies we won't really come upon someone like him until Coleridge in his later-life talkative mode. But when we get to Coleridge as undergraduates, as you'll recall, we group him comfortably among the "Romantics," and we tend to ignore the inconvenience of his having continued to to busy himself with the philosophical dimensions of literature for decades after his poet's pen had run dry.
For more of my comments on literature, see Tuppence Reviews (Kindle).
Another inconvenient figure is William Blake, the poet often grouped with the "Romantics," but clearly not one of them and a study unto himself, sui generis, one of a kind. If you're going to study Blake, you have to take him on whole and in extenso, not side-by-side with anyone.
An easier figure of inconvenience in some ways, but deceptively so, is the titanic figure of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). He's inconvenient because he was protean-a poet, a lexicographer, a critic, a dramatist, an essayist, a biographer, and some things I've not doubt left out--letter-writer, for instance.
On top of all that comes the extensive biography of Johnson written by his young friend, James Boswell, which is either the best or the worst way to get to know Johnson.
For decades I decided it would be the worst way to get to know him. The Johnson I spent most time on in college was Johnson the critic of Shakespeare. Having just taken a look back what I then read, my recollection proves correct: he was an uncommonly astute, forthright, plain-spoken critic. He points out all the plot flaws in Hamlet the play, for example, without diminishing the enigmatic genius of Hamlet the character for whom the play is known.
Johnson wrote to be read and had either the self-confidence or temerity to believe that by criticizing Shakespeare for his flaws, he actually built up his strengths.
But last week I decided to take on volume 1 of Boswell on Johnson, and now I've finished it, or perhaps I should say half-finished it because, to my surprise, it ends with a huge quantity of appendices and footnotes, and I have never in my life enjoyed reading appendices, footnotes, or introductions either by some notable editor or the author himself. In one case, Nabokov's Pale Fire, I know I've cut myself out of the fun, but that's pretty much the exception. My rule is that if it's important, it's in the text; if not, not…ignore it.
The Johnson Boswell presents--and he presents him well--is exactly the sprawling figure who doesn't fit comfortably in any multi-author syllabus. He wrote for a living for decades, never stopped writing, and when it came to producing a one-author dictionary of the English language (a task for which the French or Italians would assign forty scholars), he would do that, too.
He was Addison and Steele, a bit of Pope, a Boswell himself to many other authors, and something of a Dostoevsky in that like Dostoevsky he produced his own newspapers from time to time, writing the copy from first word to last.
I don't recommend you pick up your very own copy of Boswell on Johnson unless it's been standing unread on your shelf since undegraduate days. Then perhaps you'll find value in considering the kinds of giants who once walked the earth and are very difficult to conjure in the present day.
From childhood on Johnson read, recalled what he read, and formed astute opinions about what he read. He was a principal figure in the Age of Reason, but not an idealist, with one exception. His preferred mode of analysis was from the specific to the general. He thought that gave a truer, if less sweet, account of reality. Where he wandered into idealism, it seems to me, was in his Christianity. Flummoxed by mortality, unable to puzzle out its ultimate purposes, he happily enough left the hard work of determining why we are here to God.
Today we have one literary figure who idolizes Samuel Johnson. That is Harold Bloom, who considers Johnson his guide and master. Multi-talented himself, Bloom does exhibit Johnson's astonishing erudition and productivity. Reading Bloom's book on Shakespeare, I recall, was like having an extended conversation with a better literary friend than I've had in person. I also recall how much the leading Shakespeare critics of our day hated what he'd written. Why? Because Bloom focused on character, because Bloom explored Shakespeare's language and worldview…because Bloom wouldn't bow down to the recent pseudo-scientific schools of literary criticism that have, pardon the pun, bloomed and wilted one after another over the last twenty-five years.
What I like in particular about Johnson as Boswell presents him are the following:
--He often took the opposite side of an argument not because it was his but for the fun of it;
--He was a lifelong depressive, given to deep fits of dark despair;
--He was a compulsive-obsessive: he never crossed a threshold with the wrong foot, and if he was about to, he retreated and took another shot at it;
--He had the wisdom to observe that as you grow older, your friends die off, so you better make a point of getting some new, younger friends…and quick.
--He was a loyal, generous, talkative, discursive friend;
--He was a giant of his age and regarded himself as a pygmy;
--He castigated himself for his unstructured reading habits…but made up for them by reading everything;
--He was a big, disheveled, goofy guy with tics galore who cocked his head sideways when he was making a point and upon doing so sometimes had to huff and puff to catch his breath;
--When he made a mistake, as he did in his definition of a horse's pastern, he attributed it to "ignorance," and made nothing more of it, not defensive at all;
--And he almost never shot back at someone who criticized him; he'd had his say, let them have theirs. (Never complain, never explain as Disraeli put it.)
So all this is why I call Samuel Johnson inconvenient. He was a prolific genius who took literature seriously enough to give his life to it. In literary studies we won't really come upon someone like him until Coleridge in his later-life talkative mode. But when we get to Coleridge as undergraduates, as you'll recall, we group him comfortably among the "Romantics," and we tend to ignore the inconvenience of his having continued to to busy himself with the philosophical dimensions of literature for decades after his poet's pen had run dry.
For more of my comments on literature, see Tuppence Reviews (Kindle).
June 14, 2022
just re-read my highlights from January 1988. Obviously made a strong impression on me at the time, but seem as given in my old age. It's a formative book for a younger reader. The primary focus is on the personality of Johnson, which I remember well.
May 9, 2021
Desde hace años tenía el deseo de leer la Vida de Johnson, solo porque recordaba un tebeo de Robert Crumb que, creía yo, estaba basado en ella. Cuando al fin tuve entre mis manos este libro, me enteré de que ese cómic plasmaba, en realidad, extractos de los diarios londinenses de James Boswell. No lamento la confusión (para más adelante queda leer esos diarios), porque me ha llevado hasta este tocho que he pasado casi un año entero leyendo (de seguido al principio, y dosificándomelo entre otras lecturas, después) y al que he acabado cogiendo mucho cariño. Pienso que merece toda la fama que tiene, porque es una biografía contada de una manera muy particular, sobre un señor que era todo un personaje y escrita por un tipo al que no se le conoce ningún otro talento (tampoco lo necesitaba, era aristócrata), pero que con esta obra se marcó un triunfo que lo lanzó directo a la inmortalidad literaria.
Vida de Johnson, aunque en su comienzo es algo más convencional, no es la típica biografía que se centra en las acciones y vivencias del biografiado (aparte de su dedicación a la literatura, algún viajecito que otro e ir a casa de algún conocido rico a ponerse como el tenazas, poco más hay que contar en la vida de Samuel Johnson). Lo importante son sus palabras, las que componen su variadísima obra pero también las que vierte en sus cartas. Hay al comienzo de buena parte de los capítulos, que son los años de la vida de Johnson, un inventario de las obras que ha producido en ese periodo. Y hay cartas, muchas, muchas cartas. Pero si hay algo que esta biografía refleja en abundancia son las conversaciones de Johnson, que Boswell escuchaba con atención y arrobamiento, y registraba poco después en su diario. Luego se ha visto que James Boswell no era el biógrafo más objetivo del mundo, ni mucho menos, y que su admiración por Johnson le llevó a silenciar los datos menos halagüeños para él (y también para sí mismo). Al fin y al cabo, este no es solo el retrato de un hombre sino también el de una gran amistad. ¿Qué es lo que salva a este tocho hecho no tanto de acciones sino de charleta, menciones literarias y epístolas, de ser un completo coñazo? Fundamentalmente, el ojo que tiene Boswell para el retrato entrañable, para lo cotidiano y las situaciones jocosas. Boswell quiere que admiremos a Johnson tanto como él lo hace, pero a fuerza de mostrárnoslo tan de cerca, nos revela las verruguitas, las imperfecciones perdonables y toda la humanidad de un personaje inconmensurable en detalles que otros biógrafos habrían pasado por alto. Vemos, por ejemplo, el desaliño de Johnson, lo dotado que estaba para la mordacidad tanto como para la ternura; nos enteramos de su furibundo conservadurismo político que hace sorprendentes las bastante liberales opiniones con que sale a veces, o su tendencia a llevar la contraria solo por el gusto de hacerlo; escuchamos, cómo no, las conversaciones en que ponía a parir a amigos (a David Garrick y Oliver Goldsmith les debían de pitar los oídos a menudo). Da la sensación de que podemos oír el crujido que hacen las sillas cuando acomoda su corpachón en ellas o ver cómo frunce el rostro en un gesto que parece de desagrado, pero que es puro esfuerzo por captar algo con sus cegatos ojos.
No hay página de esta biografía que nos permita olvidar lo importante que Samuel Johnson fue en la vida de James Boswell. Es imposible leerla sin pensar en el biografiado tanto como en el biógrafo, así como en la interesantísima época en que vivieron y que hace que se asomen a estas páginas figuras como Edmund Burke, Anna Seward, Horace Walpole, Joshua Reynolds, Hannah More, Alexander Pope y tantos otros. Puede que Vida de Johnson sea un ladrillo de casi mil quinientas páginas, pero os aseguro que el mundo que contiene se hace aún más amplio.
Vida de Johnson, aunque en su comienzo es algo más convencional, no es la típica biografía que se centra en las acciones y vivencias del biografiado (aparte de su dedicación a la literatura, algún viajecito que otro e ir a casa de algún conocido rico a ponerse como el tenazas, poco más hay que contar en la vida de Samuel Johnson). Lo importante son sus palabras, las que componen su variadísima obra pero también las que vierte en sus cartas. Hay al comienzo de buena parte de los capítulos, que son los años de la vida de Johnson, un inventario de las obras que ha producido en ese periodo. Y hay cartas, muchas, muchas cartas. Pero si hay algo que esta biografía refleja en abundancia son las conversaciones de Johnson, que Boswell escuchaba con atención y arrobamiento, y registraba poco después en su diario. Luego se ha visto que James Boswell no era el biógrafo más objetivo del mundo, ni mucho menos, y que su admiración por Johnson le llevó a silenciar los datos menos halagüeños para él (y también para sí mismo). Al fin y al cabo, este no es solo el retrato de un hombre sino también el de una gran amistad. ¿Qué es lo que salva a este tocho hecho no tanto de acciones sino de charleta, menciones literarias y epístolas, de ser un completo coñazo? Fundamentalmente, el ojo que tiene Boswell para el retrato entrañable, para lo cotidiano y las situaciones jocosas. Boswell quiere que admiremos a Johnson tanto como él lo hace, pero a fuerza de mostrárnoslo tan de cerca, nos revela las verruguitas, las imperfecciones perdonables y toda la humanidad de un personaje inconmensurable en detalles que otros biógrafos habrían pasado por alto. Vemos, por ejemplo, el desaliño de Johnson, lo dotado que estaba para la mordacidad tanto como para la ternura; nos enteramos de su furibundo conservadurismo político que hace sorprendentes las bastante liberales opiniones con que sale a veces, o su tendencia a llevar la contraria solo por el gusto de hacerlo; escuchamos, cómo no, las conversaciones en que ponía a parir a amigos (a David Garrick y Oliver Goldsmith les debían de pitar los oídos a menudo). Da la sensación de que podemos oír el crujido que hacen las sillas cuando acomoda su corpachón en ellas o ver cómo frunce el rostro en un gesto que parece de desagrado, pero que es puro esfuerzo por captar algo con sus cegatos ojos.
No hay página de esta biografía que nos permita olvidar lo importante que Samuel Johnson fue en la vida de James Boswell. Es imposible leerla sin pensar en el biografiado tanto como en el biógrafo, así como en la interesantísima época en que vivieron y que hace que se asomen a estas páginas figuras como Edmund Burke, Anna Seward, Horace Walpole, Joshua Reynolds, Hannah More, Alexander Pope y tantos otros. Puede que Vida de Johnson sea un ladrillo de casi mil quinientas páginas, pero os aseguro que el mundo que contiene se hace aún más amplio.
January 30, 2021
Every time I see this book on my list I read it as “ the life of Samuel JACKSON” and that would be so much more exciting
September 3, 2021
A lifelong reading goal finally achieved. I got a tiny bit tired of Mr. Samuel Johnson but in the end I enjoyed his wisdom and struggles.
Want to read
January 21, 2009I put this down around page 600 because I didn't think I had the time or attention to devote to all 1200 pages. That said, it's not arduous reading. Exceedingly pleasant, in fact. Richard Howard, in a poem somewhere, referred to the 'glossy carapace' of 18th century diction; Boswell, on his own and aided by copious extracts from Johnson and others, forms a treasure chest of elegantly turned utterance.
November 12, 2020
Moved to gwern.net.
November 18, 2008
The best way to read Boswell's Life of Johnson is this way: via a somewhat cheesy, "classic library" volume of a Great Classics type of series. The book looks like one of those books you would find in the movie set of a lawyer's office, trying to look distinguished and old, although it feels plasticy.
We learn from other sources (outside of Boswell) that Boswell himself was something of an annoying 18th century star f__ker, but thank God he was - because reading this book is like being a part of a hundred dinner and parlour conversations with the wits and men of power in 18th century England. Funny bastards some of them were, too.
Skill in the art of conversation was the most highly prized talent, and Johnson was considered king of them all. This is a world steeped in The Classics, post Renaissance but pre Industrial/Scientific Revolution - that sweet spot where men were expected to venture to come up with a theory and interpretation about anything: how to talk, the way to cook a meal, where to travel, you name it. And Johnson always had an interesting and strong Theory of Anything.
Somehow it seems like nobody worked, they were just able to go to each other's houses, eat too much, drink hard, and talk smack about each other full time. Good times.
Today, Johnson would be considered a blowhard; narrow minded, reactionary, pompous, and egotistical. But that's why he's actually interesting.
This was a cool era because you would address your best friend as "Sir".
Ironically, Boswell's writing holds up better than Johnson's himself, but who cares about that history of literature crap.
If each book had a smell, this book would smell like really good roast beef, with some hard licks thrown in.
Sir, I am,
Your most humble reviewer,
&tc &tc
We learn from other sources (outside of Boswell) that Boswell himself was something of an annoying 18th century star f__ker, but thank God he was - because reading this book is like being a part of a hundred dinner and parlour conversations with the wits and men of power in 18th century England. Funny bastards some of them were, too.
Skill in the art of conversation was the most highly prized talent, and Johnson was considered king of them all. This is a world steeped in The Classics, post Renaissance but pre Industrial/Scientific Revolution - that sweet spot where men were expected to venture to come up with a theory and interpretation about anything: how to talk, the way to cook a meal, where to travel, you name it. And Johnson always had an interesting and strong Theory of Anything.
Somehow it seems like nobody worked, they were just able to go to each other's houses, eat too much, drink hard, and talk smack about each other full time. Good times.
Today, Johnson would be considered a blowhard; narrow minded, reactionary, pompous, and egotistical. But that's why he's actually interesting.
This was a cool era because you would address your best friend as "Sir".
Ironically, Boswell's writing holds up better than Johnson's himself, but who cares about that history of literature crap.
If each book had a smell, this book would smell like really good roast beef, with some hard licks thrown in.
Sir, I am,
Your most humble reviewer,
&tc &tc
January 4, 2011
Actually, I dip in and out of this one (over 30 years!) and I find it delightful & very funny.
January 7, 2020
Debería estar escribiendo esta breve reseña como merece la obra en cuestión: bajo la satisfacción en que se vive con 21 grados de temperatura ambiental. El cuerpo así templado, incluido el intelecto, da lo mejor de lo que es capaz. Pero una serie de adversas circunstancias impiden que disfrute del confort que los humanos nos hemos dado para mejor pasar las épocas invernales. Dadas estas penosas condiciones, haré lo que pueda. Entre muchas otras cosas, el doctor Johnson tenía la firme convicción de que el clima ni afecta ni debería afectar al hombre, por lo que cualquier queja resulta injustificada.
Si hablase de la mejor biografía de la historia de la literatura estaría mintiendo. Quien tilde a este monstruo paginado de biografía está faltando gravemente a la verdad. Entonces, ¿qué tenemos entre manos? Un monumento literario que Boswell se erige a mayor gloria suya con Samuel Johnson como excusa. Entendámonos, Boswell habla de Johnson, pero habla de tal manera que, hablando de Johnson, habla de sí mismo.
¿Y quiénes son estos dos? Son, o fueron, un par de caballeros -uno inglés (Johnson), el otro escocés (Boswell)- que cultivaron su amistad bajo el sol del siglo XVIII. Uno escribió en solitario todo un diccionario de la lengua inglesa, labor por la que es conocido entre gentes de conmovedor gusto, además de un llamativo número de epitafios, prólogos, dedicatorias, ensayos, cartas, biografías, poemas, etc.. Un coloso de las letras inglesas al que solo Shakespeare puede ensombrecer.
El otro, abogado y "bon vivant", sustancialmente más joven que Johnson, escribió esta obra, por la que es conocido entre las gentes de heterodoxo gusto literario.
¿Y qué nos encontramos en el libro? Un minucioso y obsesivo catálogo de acontecimientos, documentos, conversaciones, muestras de carácter, polémicas y anécdotas relativas al doctor Johnson, que tiene la pretensión última de trazar la semblanza de este individuo para regocijo de la posteridad. El negativo del revelado muestra a Boswell, siempre Boswell, pululando por todo el texto. Para el cargante escocés, Johnson representaba un trampolín que le franqueaba las puertas del templo donde se reunía la élite político-literaria del momento. Ser amigo íntimo del doctor Johnson suponía un prestigio social que Bozzy no iba a desaprovechar. Volcó todos sus esfuerzos en trabar amistad con el gigante inglés. Y no solo eso. Hizo todo lo posible para que esa amistad se sostuviera en el tiempo y le reportase el máximo beneficio. Cuanto más egregio se nos presenta Johnson, tanto más lucimiento obtiene Boswell.
En 1763 se produce el encuentro entre los dos. Hasta ese año, el libro adquiere la forma de una reconstrucción de la vida de Johnson desde su nacimiento hasta el feliz año en el que el dúo queda indisolublemente unido, ayudándose para ello de testimonios de terceros y documentos que dan cuenta de los acontecimientos relevantes. Esta parte, pese a abarcar más años, es proporcionalmente minúscula respecto aquella en la que Boswell entra a formar parte del reparto. A partir de ese momento comienza un libro diferente, centrado casi en exclusiva en la relación de ellos dos, en torno a la que giran como satélites diversas personalidades relevantes de la Inglaterra de la época: Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith o Edward Gibbon. Todos estos individuos y varios más eran habituales de los clubs que frecuentaba Johnson, cuya figura dominante presidía los encuentros, sentando cátedra y amonestando toda muestra de ignorancia sobre el tema que se tratase. Las reuniones, cuyo núcleo estaba compuesto de conversación y bebida, eran el mayor de los divertimentos de Samuel Johnson. En ellas gustaba de polemizar incansablemente en duelos retóricos que versaban sobre los más diversos asuntos. Boswell actúa de taquígrafo y notario de las intervenciones del ilustre literato, logrando con ello transmitir su carácter y pensamiento muy vivamente. Además de los parlamentos siempre festivos al calor del debate, Boswell facilita una amplia muestra del epistolario de Johnson, dirigido a toda clase de personas y por los más variados motivos. Y, por si fuera poco lo anterior, no escatima a la hora de introducir en su obra anécdotas, sus propias réplicas a Johnson, rumores, desmentidos, ilustraciones minuciosas de las manías y peculiaridades gestuales del doctor, sus enfermedades y calamidades físicas, ejemplos de piedad y devoción o los actos de caridad exhibidos para con el prójimo. El conjunto ofrece una imagen suficientemente completa de Samuel Johnson. Poco importa que no se ajuste debidamente a la verdad porque el retrato que de él hace Boswell es soberbio en su amenidad. Nos retrata a un original personaje que colma las ansias de extravagancia de cualquier lector aficionado a ella. Y no solo acabamos con la sensación de haber conocido al Johnson que los ojos y el corazón de Boswell representaron para sí, sino que a ello se suma una expresiva descripción de la época: costumbres, política, literatura, lenguaje, religión, etc.
La edición de Acantilado integra los cuatro volúmenes de los que consta la obra junto a un extenso aparato de notas. La traducción, desde el más absoluto desconocimiento de la materia del que adolezco, se me antoja lograda, con el mérito añadido de remedar convincentemente el pomposo estilo característico de la Inglaterra del XVIII.
Si hablase de la mejor biografía de la historia de la literatura estaría mintiendo. Quien tilde a este monstruo paginado de biografía está faltando gravemente a la verdad. Entonces, ¿qué tenemos entre manos? Un monumento literario que Boswell se erige a mayor gloria suya con Samuel Johnson como excusa. Entendámonos, Boswell habla de Johnson, pero habla de tal manera que, hablando de Johnson, habla de sí mismo.
¿Y quiénes son estos dos? Son, o fueron, un par de caballeros -uno inglés (Johnson), el otro escocés (Boswell)- que cultivaron su amistad bajo el sol del siglo XVIII. Uno escribió en solitario todo un diccionario de la lengua inglesa, labor por la que es conocido entre gentes de conmovedor gusto, además de un llamativo número de epitafios, prólogos, dedicatorias, ensayos, cartas, biografías, poemas, etc.. Un coloso de las letras inglesas al que solo Shakespeare puede ensombrecer.
El otro, abogado y "bon vivant", sustancialmente más joven que Johnson, escribió esta obra, por la que es conocido entre las gentes de heterodoxo gusto literario.
¿Y qué nos encontramos en el libro? Un minucioso y obsesivo catálogo de acontecimientos, documentos, conversaciones, muestras de carácter, polémicas y anécdotas relativas al doctor Johnson, que tiene la pretensión última de trazar la semblanza de este individuo para regocijo de la posteridad. El negativo del revelado muestra a Boswell, siempre Boswell, pululando por todo el texto. Para el cargante escocés, Johnson representaba un trampolín que le franqueaba las puertas del templo donde se reunía la élite político-literaria del momento. Ser amigo íntimo del doctor Johnson suponía un prestigio social que Bozzy no iba a desaprovechar. Volcó todos sus esfuerzos en trabar amistad con el gigante inglés. Y no solo eso. Hizo todo lo posible para que esa amistad se sostuviera en el tiempo y le reportase el máximo beneficio. Cuanto más egregio se nos presenta Johnson, tanto más lucimiento obtiene Boswell.
En 1763 se produce el encuentro entre los dos. Hasta ese año, el libro adquiere la forma de una reconstrucción de la vida de Johnson desde su nacimiento hasta el feliz año en el que el dúo queda indisolublemente unido, ayudándose para ello de testimonios de terceros y documentos que dan cuenta de los acontecimientos relevantes. Esta parte, pese a abarcar más años, es proporcionalmente minúscula respecto aquella en la que Boswell entra a formar parte del reparto. A partir de ese momento comienza un libro diferente, centrado casi en exclusiva en la relación de ellos dos, en torno a la que giran como satélites diversas personalidades relevantes de la Inglaterra de la época: Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith o Edward Gibbon. Todos estos individuos y varios más eran habituales de los clubs que frecuentaba Johnson, cuya figura dominante presidía los encuentros, sentando cátedra y amonestando toda muestra de ignorancia sobre el tema que se tratase. Las reuniones, cuyo núcleo estaba compuesto de conversación y bebida, eran el mayor de los divertimentos de Samuel Johnson. En ellas gustaba de polemizar incansablemente en duelos retóricos que versaban sobre los más diversos asuntos. Boswell actúa de taquígrafo y notario de las intervenciones del ilustre literato, logrando con ello transmitir su carácter y pensamiento muy vivamente. Además de los parlamentos siempre festivos al calor del debate, Boswell facilita una amplia muestra del epistolario de Johnson, dirigido a toda clase de personas y por los más variados motivos. Y, por si fuera poco lo anterior, no escatima a la hora de introducir en su obra anécdotas, sus propias réplicas a Johnson, rumores, desmentidos, ilustraciones minuciosas de las manías y peculiaridades gestuales del doctor, sus enfermedades y calamidades físicas, ejemplos de piedad y devoción o los actos de caridad exhibidos para con el prójimo. El conjunto ofrece una imagen suficientemente completa de Samuel Johnson. Poco importa que no se ajuste debidamente a la verdad porque el retrato que de él hace Boswell es soberbio en su amenidad. Nos retrata a un original personaje que colma las ansias de extravagancia de cualquier lector aficionado a ella. Y no solo acabamos con la sensación de haber conocido al Johnson que los ojos y el corazón de Boswell representaron para sí, sino que a ello se suma una expresiva descripción de la época: costumbres, política, literatura, lenguaje, religión, etc.
La edición de Acantilado integra los cuatro volúmenes de los que consta la obra junto a un extenso aparato de notas. La traducción, desde el más absoluto desconocimiento de la materia del que adolezco, se me antoja lograda, con el mérito añadido de remedar convincentemente el pomposo estilo característico de la Inglaterra del XVIII.
February 16, 2021
The goal of Boswell's fawning, minutely detailed life is to give you a flavour of Johnson as a conversationalist; to that end he assembled countless anecdotes from their time together, trying to quote verbatim and omit as little as possible, sometimes from notes he would write up after their evenings in the Mitre or one another's homes. The pity of this is that, on the abundant evidence, Johnson was not a terribly interesting mind, and his wit has not really lasted. His politics and opinions were mostly terrible (a dogged conservatism, arguing for the superiority of the established religion, aristocracy and class structure, suppression of women, a fervent dislike of Scotland and loathing of America). His opinions on literature are justly the more famous - although he is simply wrong on the poetry of Thomas Gray, and I guess Tristram Shandy as well, although that was a challenge to even the adventurous of its time, let alone the hide-bound, unimaginative Johnson.
There were many great minds in his day (Burke, Gibbon, Hume, Smith...), but neither Johnson nor Boswell were among them, nor any of their regular circle: the actor David Garrick, painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Thrales. But the great supposed value in Johnson's endless obiter dicta is supposed to be their wit, the European court/salon tradition of saying something which sounds superficially clever or convincing, even if it is in truth completely stupid. Johnson was a master of this pointless art - indeed Boswell notes that he would often argue different sides of an argument at different times, or purposely argue a point he didn't believe in just for the challenge. Here are a couple of examples I noted down:
- (On an argument against free will): "If a man should give me arguments that I do not see, though I could not answer them, should I believe that I do not see?" (Similar to his famous, and equally stupid, "I refute it thus" about Berkley's idealism.)
- "Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there occurred this line: 'Who rules o’er freemen should himself be free.' The company having admired it much, 'I cannot agree with you (said Johnson). It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'"
- "Talking of biography, I said a man’s peculiarities should be mentioned because they mark his character. Johnson: 'Sir, the question is whether a man’s vices should be mentioned; for instance, whether it should be mentioned that Addison and Parnell drank too freely: for people will probably more easily indulge in drinking from knowing this; so that more ill may be done by the example than good by telling the whole truth.' Here was an instance of his varying from himself in talk; for [on a previous occasion] I well remember that Dr. Johnson maintained that '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:' and when I objected to the danger of telling that Parnell drank to excess, he said, that 'it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking when it was seen that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it."
Overall, as may be clear, I found this book occasionally amusing but mostly bloated and tedious. Is there any value to just spouting random bullshit eloquently (witnessed today in excess on Twitter)? This was perhaps a valued skill in Johnson's time, but it has fallen out of fashion, and while today probably millions of people read Johnson's arch-enemies - Smith's Wealth of Nations or Hume's Treatise on Human Nature - it is only the rare grad student who will blow the dust off Johnson's Rambler or Idler.
Two closing points. Firstly, one of the few details Boswell curiously chooses to omit is why Johnson had some kind of vendetta against Mrs Boswell. The origin is never explained, but dozens of the letters end with some form of grievance against her. Secondly, I listened to the Naxos audiobook recorded by David Timson, who switches impressively between Boswell's light brogue, Johnson flat Brummie accent (he was from the nearby town of Lichfield), and Goldsmith's Irish lilt.
Here is an Adam Gopnik essay on Boswell's Life and some more recent Johnson biographies.
There were many great minds in his day (Burke, Gibbon, Hume, Smith...), but neither Johnson nor Boswell were among them, nor any of their regular circle: the actor David Garrick, painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Thrales. But the great supposed value in Johnson's endless obiter dicta is supposed to be their wit, the European court/salon tradition of saying something which sounds superficially clever or convincing, even if it is in truth completely stupid. Johnson was a master of this pointless art - indeed Boswell notes that he would often argue different sides of an argument at different times, or purposely argue a point he didn't believe in just for the challenge. Here are a couple of examples I noted down:
- (On an argument against free will): "If a man should give me arguments that I do not see, though I could not answer them, should I believe that I do not see?" (Similar to his famous, and equally stupid, "I refute it thus" about Berkley's idealism.)
- "Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there occurred this line: 'Who rules o’er freemen should himself be free.' The company having admired it much, 'I cannot agree with you (said Johnson). It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'"
- "Talking of biography, I said a man’s peculiarities should be mentioned because they mark his character. Johnson: 'Sir, the question is whether a man’s vices should be mentioned; for instance, whether it should be mentioned that Addison and Parnell drank too freely: for people will probably more easily indulge in drinking from knowing this; so that more ill may be done by the example than good by telling the whole truth.' Here was an instance of his varying from himself in talk; for [on a previous occasion] I well remember that Dr. Johnson maintained that '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:' and when I objected to the danger of telling that Parnell drank to excess, he said, that 'it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking when it was seen that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it."
Overall, as may be clear, I found this book occasionally amusing but mostly bloated and tedious. Is there any value to just spouting random bullshit eloquently (witnessed today in excess on Twitter)? This was perhaps a valued skill in Johnson's time, but it has fallen out of fashion, and while today probably millions of people read Johnson's arch-enemies - Smith's Wealth of Nations or Hume's Treatise on Human Nature - it is only the rare grad student who will blow the dust off Johnson's Rambler or Idler.
Two closing points. Firstly, one of the few details Boswell curiously chooses to omit is why Johnson had some kind of vendetta against Mrs Boswell. The origin is never explained, but dozens of the letters end with some form of grievance against her. Secondly, I listened to the Naxos audiobook recorded by David Timson, who switches impressively between Boswell's light brogue, Johnson flat Brummie accent (he was from the nearby town of Lichfield), and Goldsmith's Irish lilt.
Here is an Adam Gopnik essay on Boswell's Life and some more recent Johnson biographies.
June 14, 2022
This massive biography was one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read. It’s a testament to Dr. Johnson’s awe-inspiring learning and exquisite sense of humor. It’s an introduction to wit and wisdom of British society in the late eighteenth century. It’s a reminder of the virtues of moderation and small “c” conservatism. It’s filled with wonderfully insightful ideas and arguments about all sorts issues of the day. It is a bridge between philosophy and gossip. It’s a manual for living. Like Oscar Wilde, Johnson put his genius into conversation rather than his many impressive literary works. Like Oscar Wilde, Johnson had the rare ability to turn every truism on its head. Thank the gods Boswell was there to record so much of that enlightening and entertaining conversation.
August 14, 2023
Made it through this massive brick. Finally! Good lord it bored me, but I am a literary masochist of sorts so I felt compelled to finish it. I know this book is famous as an early work of biography and that Johnson was considered a genius of his time, but for me he came off as a moralizing blowhard with a bit of a big ego. Full of minute detail on everything that Johnson ever said around or to Boswell and even more, this book gives you a very full picture of the the guy who was Johnson. I feel compelled to give it 3 stars for the effort put forth by the author and the historical significance.
May 5, 2012
Boswell’s Life of Johnson is one of the most famous biographies in the English language. Its subject is one of the most celebrated English men of letters. But oddly, a reader of this lengthy encomium might come away wondering exactly why Johnson is so celebrated.
In fact, it is a stretch to call this a biography at all. It does not paint a complete portrait of Johnson by any means. It does little to explicate his works or put them in the context of his life. What it does, is provide long succession of anecdotes of Boswell’s personal interactions and experiences with Johnson. These, apart from a brief trip the two made to Scotland together, seem to consist mainly of dinner parties, tea time and long nights before the fire with a bottle of port. Even the famous Literary Club which Johnson presided over is given relatively short shrift.
Boswell first met Johnson in 1763, when Johnson was already 54 and years after his defining work, the Dictionary, was published and his reputation established. Boswell does zoom through a (cursory) summary of Johnson’s life to the point of their meeting, but the bulk of this book is devoted to detailing conversations, both private ones between Boswell and Johnson alone, and ones that took place among Johnson and his illustrious circle of acquaintances. And this detail does establish Johnson as master of the epigram and quick-witted riposte. It also establishes him as a formidable adversary in debate (Goldsmith said of him, “There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”), as condescending, opinionated and overbearing. He was rigidly Anglican, rigidly Tory, rigidly prejudiced (not least against the Scots, Boswell’s own nationality). He rarely left England – but after all, London was the center of the universe (“when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." (Sounds like something Andi would say about New York!)). He hated the Americans (“…order cannot be had but by subordination.”).
In short, Johnson comes across as a not very sympathetic character. But somehow he was a hot ticket in London’s intellectual and social circles, never seeming to be without a dinner invitation or the opportunity to pass a few weeks at someone’s estate in the country. His Literary Club boasted a membership that makes Ben Franklin’s Junto seem bush league: Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Joshua Reynolds, to name just the ones I’ve heard of. And Boswell’s affection for him is boundless, despite all the wisecracks about the Scots. Oh yes, he loved his wife (who Boswell never met) and he loved his cat, Hodge.
And though it might have been uncomfortable for a lesser man to engage Johnson in conversation, it is entertaining from the safe distance of two and a quarter centuries to read about his domination of the drawing room. (It’s fun to imagine what an evening with him and Oscar Wilde might have been like.) But to assess Johnson’s place in the literary history of the English speaking world, Boswell’s Life won’t do.
In fact, it is a stretch to call this a biography at all. It does not paint a complete portrait of Johnson by any means. It does little to explicate his works or put them in the context of his life. What it does, is provide long succession of anecdotes of Boswell’s personal interactions and experiences with Johnson. These, apart from a brief trip the two made to Scotland together, seem to consist mainly of dinner parties, tea time and long nights before the fire with a bottle of port. Even the famous Literary Club which Johnson presided over is given relatively short shrift.
Boswell first met Johnson in 1763, when Johnson was already 54 and years after his defining work, the Dictionary, was published and his reputation established. Boswell does zoom through a (cursory) summary of Johnson’s life to the point of their meeting, but the bulk of this book is devoted to detailing conversations, both private ones between Boswell and Johnson alone, and ones that took place among Johnson and his illustrious circle of acquaintances. And this detail does establish Johnson as master of the epigram and quick-witted riposte. It also establishes him as a formidable adversary in debate (Goldsmith said of him, “There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”), as condescending, opinionated and overbearing. He was rigidly Anglican, rigidly Tory, rigidly prejudiced (not least against the Scots, Boswell’s own nationality). He rarely left England – but after all, London was the center of the universe (“when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." (Sounds like something Andi would say about New York!)). He hated the Americans (“…order cannot be had but by subordination.”).
In short, Johnson comes across as a not very sympathetic character. But somehow he was a hot ticket in London’s intellectual and social circles, never seeming to be without a dinner invitation or the opportunity to pass a few weeks at someone’s estate in the country. His Literary Club boasted a membership that makes Ben Franklin’s Junto seem bush league: Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Joshua Reynolds, to name just the ones I’ve heard of. And Boswell’s affection for him is boundless, despite all the wisecracks about the Scots. Oh yes, he loved his wife (who Boswell never met) and he loved his cat, Hodge.
And though it might have been uncomfortable for a lesser man to engage Johnson in conversation, it is entertaining from the safe distance of two and a quarter centuries to read about his domination of the drawing room. (It’s fun to imagine what an evening with him and Oscar Wilde might have been like.) But to assess Johnson’s place in the literary history of the English speaking world, Boswell’s Life won’t do.
April 25, 2020
This is a great book about a great man, albeit not written by a great man. I started reading this in 2016, I think. C. S. Lewis recommends approaching it as “lunch literature.” This does not mean it is light reading, however. It is conversational reading, but in these conversations Johnson reveals a remarkable dexterity of mind.
There are several key events in Johnson’s life. One key event is the publishing of his Dictionary. Age 46: Published the Dictionary. Received MA in 1755. Another turning point is the death of Johnson’s wife.
The model is the gentleman-scholar shaped by Tory ideals. The model is the “pious Tory.” “Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place: (Boswell 93). Johnson was a devout Anglican who held to Tory principles, though the latter were not held irrationally. Johnson was not afraid of Deists and skeptics. He knew he was their superior and this allowed him to approach the debate with calm and mastery. He understood that Boswell had doubts but Johnson didn’t immediately crush them. He took Boswell by the hand and guided him.
Sometimes he is even funny. Boswell tells of the amusing story of when Johnson discussed Toryism with the niece of a friend:
One day when dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, “My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.” Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, was attached to the present Royal Family, seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by putting such a question to his niece! “Why, Sir, (said Johnson) I meant no offence to your niece, I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of Kings. He that believes in the divine right of Kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle” (305).
Furthermore, Toriness is a manliness of spirit. Johnson writes concerning a late bishop who deserves Johnson’s support: “and [it will] increase that fervour of Loyalty, which in me, who boast of the name TORY, is not only a principle, but a passion” (804).
Johnson warns of the propensity towards lawsuits and debts. “Of lawsuits there is no end ...I am more afraid of the debts than the House of Lords. It is scarcely imagined what debts will swell, that are daily increasing by small additions, and how carelessly in a state of desperation debts are contracted” (817).
The three moments are “Johnson before marriage,” Johnson after his wife’s death, and Johnson’s companionship with Boswell.
Johnson is one of those heroic individuals. Johnson was firm yet gentle with Boswell. He helped Boswell work through his doubts. The skeptics weren’t to be feared. Johnson wasn’t impressed with Hume. Any objection Hume had to the faith, Johnson had already worked through when he was young. He writes, “Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull” (314).
Boswell wants us to note that Johnson was “manly.” Not in a cheap bravado sense, but he was direct, firm, yet polite. A telling scene was when His Majesty paid a surprise visit to Johnson: “During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice and never in that subdued tone which ...is commonly used in the drawing room” (384).
Around age 66 for Johnson the American colonies were beginning to rebel. Interestingly, Boswell refers to the Bostonians as a “race” (575).
We should imitate Johnson both in word and deed. Johnson believed--correctly--in a natural hierarchy of mankind. He opposed the “Leveller” doctrine (quasi-Anabaptists).
Johnson also (correctly) opposed Rousseau.
Boswell: "Do you really think him [Rousseau] a bad man?" Johnson: "Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him: and it is a shame that he is protected in this country." Boswell: "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad." Johnson: "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations."
There are several key events in Johnson’s life. One key event is the publishing of his Dictionary. Age 46: Published the Dictionary. Received MA in 1755. Another turning point is the death of Johnson’s wife.
The model is the gentleman-scholar shaped by Tory ideals. The model is the “pious Tory.” “Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place: (Boswell 93). Johnson was a devout Anglican who held to Tory principles, though the latter were not held irrationally. Johnson was not afraid of Deists and skeptics. He knew he was their superior and this allowed him to approach the debate with calm and mastery. He understood that Boswell had doubts but Johnson didn’t immediately crush them. He took Boswell by the hand and guided him.
Sometimes he is even funny. Boswell tells of the amusing story of when Johnson discussed Toryism with the niece of a friend:
One day when dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, “My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.” Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, was attached to the present Royal Family, seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by putting such a question to his niece! “Why, Sir, (said Johnson) I meant no offence to your niece, I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of Kings. He that believes in the divine right of Kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle” (305).
Furthermore, Toriness is a manliness of spirit. Johnson writes concerning a late bishop who deserves Johnson’s support: “and [it will] increase that fervour of Loyalty, which in me, who boast of the name TORY, is not only a principle, but a passion” (804).
Johnson warns of the propensity towards lawsuits and debts. “Of lawsuits there is no end ...I am more afraid of the debts than the House of Lords. It is scarcely imagined what debts will swell, that are daily increasing by small additions, and how carelessly in a state of desperation debts are contracted” (817).
The three moments are “Johnson before marriage,” Johnson after his wife’s death, and Johnson’s companionship with Boswell.
Johnson is one of those heroic individuals. Johnson was firm yet gentle with Boswell. He helped Boswell work through his doubts. The skeptics weren’t to be feared. Johnson wasn’t impressed with Hume. Any objection Hume had to the faith, Johnson had already worked through when he was young. He writes, “Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull” (314).
Boswell wants us to note that Johnson was “manly.” Not in a cheap bravado sense, but he was direct, firm, yet polite. A telling scene was when His Majesty paid a surprise visit to Johnson: “During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice and never in that subdued tone which ...is commonly used in the drawing room” (384).
Around age 66 for Johnson the American colonies were beginning to rebel. Interestingly, Boswell refers to the Bostonians as a “race” (575).
We should imitate Johnson both in word and deed. Johnson believed--correctly--in a natural hierarchy of mankind. He opposed the “Leveller” doctrine (quasi-Anabaptists).
Johnson also (correctly) opposed Rousseau.
Boswell: "Do you really think him [Rousseau] a bad man?" Johnson: "Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him: and it is a shame that he is protected in this country." Boswell: "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad." Johnson: "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations."
December 4, 2023
Trying to rate this book is very difficult for me. Just the immensity of what Boswell was trying to do is extraordinary. And he does such a wonderful job. I rate it five stars because this is such a unique biography and for the aforementioned reasons. I got rather annoyed with both of them at times but only because I hadn’t gotten to know them well yet, and then when I did know them, especially when they got long-winded. Overall, I just was impressed with Boswell taking on something of this magnitude and doing a good job with it. At the same time, towards the end of the 1200 pages I was thinking, man this was a lot to read but also how incomplete it was at the same time of knowing who all of Samuel Johnson was, with all the letters and inappropriate paragraphs that Boswell mentioned were not put in. I was struck by two things in particular, that when speaking ill of someone, those names were kept out and what a humane and thoughtful thing to do, but I suspect it was very much the propriety of the time. The other thing is what it says at the end of John’s gospel: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” And while Johnson certainly is not Jesus it would take an actual bookshelf to contain most people’s lives accurately and fully. I’m just fascinated by that and that is quite the thing to think on and ponder. And one more: that concise biographies are great for an overview but are not close to the whole picture.
Onto Boswell and Johnson. At first, I felt rather annoyed with Boswell’s seemingly kissing up to Johnson to have such an honor to write about his life, and then I began to see a unique friendship form and deepen and then I was thoroughly invested. I was trying to think of a way to describe what reading all of this was like and this is what I came up with: It’s as if you are listening to what will become one of your favorite podcasts. At first, you’ll be annoyed and scoff at some things they say and as you gradually get to know the hosts, you become endeared towards them and get the jesting and joking and it’s like you are in the same room with them. The Life of Samuel Johnson is a bit like that. But also, part Jeeves and Bertie, part Grumpy Old Men, and a little bit of Pres. Adams and Pres. Jefferson writing back and forth to each other in old age.
Johnson is prejudiced to anyone who is not English and I might even say a Londoner. Especially to the Scots, which cracks me up because Boswell is Scottish. Boswell has quite the sense of humor and in the last half of the book knew Johnson enough to poke the bear just enough to make many conversations hilarious to read and listen to. I also loved how often Johnson tried to get Boswell’s wife in his good graces to seemingly no avail. I’m glad I read and listened to it on audio at the same time. I will say that the audible audiobook leaves out several letters that are in this edition but I honestly can’t blame them, they were letters that didn’t fit in with anything else and were random. I started this book at the beginning of the year and took it slow and steady in 15 page increments and that worked well for me.
Also, I’ll have another friend to visit at Westminster Abbey. 💕
Onto Boswell and Johnson. At first, I felt rather annoyed with Boswell’s seemingly kissing up to Johnson to have such an honor to write about his life, and then I began to see a unique friendship form and deepen and then I was thoroughly invested. I was trying to think of a way to describe what reading all of this was like and this is what I came up with: It’s as if you are listening to what will become one of your favorite podcasts. At first, you’ll be annoyed and scoff at some things they say and as you gradually get to know the hosts, you become endeared towards them and get the jesting and joking and it’s like you are in the same room with them. The Life of Samuel Johnson is a bit like that. But also, part Jeeves and Bertie, part Grumpy Old Men, and a little bit of Pres. Adams and Pres. Jefferson writing back and forth to each other in old age.
Johnson is prejudiced to anyone who is not English and I might even say a Londoner. Especially to the Scots, which cracks me up because Boswell is Scottish. Boswell has quite the sense of humor and in the last half of the book knew Johnson enough to poke the bear just enough to make many conversations hilarious to read and listen to. I also loved how often Johnson tried to get Boswell’s wife in his good graces to seemingly no avail. I’m glad I read and listened to it on audio at the same time. I will say that the audible audiobook leaves out several letters that are in this edition but I honestly can’t blame them, they were letters that didn’t fit in with anything else and were random. I started this book at the beginning of the year and took it slow and steady in 15 page increments and that worked well for me.
Also, I’ll have another friend to visit at Westminster Abbey. 💕
December 15, 2021
This is a great book about a great man, albeit not written by a great man. I started reading this in 2016, I think. C. S. Lewis recommends approaching it as “lunch literature.” This does not mean it is light reading, however. It is conversational reading, but in these conversations Johnson reveals a remarkable dexterity of mind.
There are several key events in Johnson’s life. One key event is the publishing of his Dictionary. Age 46: Published the Dictionary. Received MA in 1755. Another turning point is the death of Johnson’s wife.
The model is the gentleman-scholar shaped by Tory ideals. The model is the “pious Tory.” “Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place: (Boswell 93). Johnson was a devout Anglican who held to Tory principles, though the latter were not held irrationally. Johnson was not afraid of Deists and skeptics. He knew he was their superior and this allowed him to approach the debate with calm and mastery. He understood that Boswell had doubts but Johnson didn’t immediately crush them. He took Boswell by the hand and guided him.
Sometimes he is even funny. Boswell tells of the amusing story of when Johnson discussed Toryism with the niece of a friend:
One day when dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, “My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.” Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, was attached to the present Royal Family, seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by putting such a question to his niece! “Why, Sir, (said Johnson) I meant no offence to your niece, I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of Kings. He that believes in the divine right of Kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle” (305).
Furthermore, Toriness is a manliness of spirit. Johnson writes concerning a late bishop who deserves Johnson’s support: “and [it will] increase that fervour of Loyalty, which in me, who boast of the name TORY, is not only a principle, but a passion” (804).
Johnson warns of the propensity towards lawsuits and debts. “Of lawsuits there is no end ...I am more afraid of the debts than the House of Lords. It is scarcely imagined what debts will swell, that are daily increasing by small additions, and how carelessly in a state of desperation debts are contracted” (817).
The three moments are “Johnson before marriage,” Johnson after his wife’s death, and Johnson’s companionship with Boswell.
Johnson is one of those heroic individuals. Johnson was firm yet gentle with Boswell. He helped Boswell work through his doubts. The skeptics weren’t to be feared. Johnson wasn’t impressed with Hume. Any objection Hume had to the faith, Johnson had already worked through when he was young. He writes, “Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull” (314).
Boswell wants us to note that Johnson was “manly.” Not in a cheap bravado sense, but he was direct, firm, yet polite. A telling scene was when His Majesty paid a surprise visit to Johnson: “During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice and never in that subdued tone which ...is commonly used in the drawing room” (384).
Around age 66 for Johnson the American colonies were beginning to rebel. Interestingly, Boswell refers to the Bostonians as a “race” (575).
We should imitate Johnson both in word and deed. Johnson believed--correctly--in a natural hierarchy of mankind. He opposed the “Leveller” doctrine (quasi-Anabaptists).
Johnson also (correctly) opposed Rousseau. Boswell: "Do you really think him [Rousseau] a bad man?" Johnson: "Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him: and it is a shame that he is protected in this country." Boswell: "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad." Johnson: "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations."
In the book, yes. In life, no. Boswell was a Freemason and Libertine. He writes, soon after meeting Johnson, “I was at this time so occupied, shall I call it? or so dissipated, by the amusements of London, that our next meeting was not till Saturday” (283).
There are several key events in Johnson’s life. One key event is the publishing of his Dictionary. Age 46: Published the Dictionary. Received MA in 1755. Another turning point is the death of Johnson’s wife.
The model is the gentleman-scholar shaped by Tory ideals. The model is the “pious Tory.” “Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place: (Boswell 93). Johnson was a devout Anglican who held to Tory principles, though the latter were not held irrationally. Johnson was not afraid of Deists and skeptics. He knew he was their superior and this allowed him to approach the debate with calm and mastery. He understood that Boswell had doubts but Johnson didn’t immediately crush them. He took Boswell by the hand and guided him.
Sometimes he is even funny. Boswell tells of the amusing story of when Johnson discussed Toryism with the niece of a friend:
One day when dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, “My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.” Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, was attached to the present Royal Family, seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by putting such a question to his niece! “Why, Sir, (said Johnson) I meant no offence to your niece, I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of Kings. He that believes in the divine right of Kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle” (305).
Furthermore, Toriness is a manliness of spirit. Johnson writes concerning a late bishop who deserves Johnson’s support: “and [it will] increase that fervour of Loyalty, which in me, who boast of the name TORY, is not only a principle, but a passion” (804).
Johnson warns of the propensity towards lawsuits and debts. “Of lawsuits there is no end ...I am more afraid of the debts than the House of Lords. It is scarcely imagined what debts will swell, that are daily increasing by small additions, and how carelessly in a state of desperation debts are contracted” (817).
The three moments are “Johnson before marriage,” Johnson after his wife’s death, and Johnson’s companionship with Boswell.
Johnson is one of those heroic individuals. Johnson was firm yet gentle with Boswell. He helped Boswell work through his doubts. The skeptics weren’t to be feared. Johnson wasn’t impressed with Hume. Any objection Hume had to the faith, Johnson had already worked through when he was young. He writes, “Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull” (314).
Boswell wants us to note that Johnson was “manly.” Not in a cheap bravado sense, but he was direct, firm, yet polite. A telling scene was when His Majesty paid a surprise visit to Johnson: “During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice and never in that subdued tone which ...is commonly used in the drawing room” (384).
Around age 66 for Johnson the American colonies were beginning to rebel. Interestingly, Boswell refers to the Bostonians as a “race” (575).
We should imitate Johnson both in word and deed. Johnson believed--correctly--in a natural hierarchy of mankind. He opposed the “Leveller” doctrine (quasi-Anabaptists).
Johnson also (correctly) opposed Rousseau. Boswell: "Do you really think him [Rousseau] a bad man?" Johnson: "Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him: and it is a shame that he is protected in this country." Boswell: "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad." Johnson: "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations."
In the book, yes. In life, no. Boswell was a Freemason and Libertine. He writes, soon after meeting Johnson, “I was at this time so occupied, shall I call it? or so dissipated, by the amusements of London, that our next meeting was not till Saturday” (283).
July 3, 2020
[Christopher Hibbert’s 375-page abridgement.]
January 18, 2020
I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. Just one of those classics I hadn't got around to. I really like how Boswell chronicles Johnson's life detailing the positive and the negative. Boswell is so in awe of his friend but does not shade his flaws. Making you wish you had known and interacted with him yourself.
August 9, 2007
i've read half this book so far and, as with all terribly good, terribly long books that you don't rush through in one go, it's comforting to know that it's at home waiting for me. i'm looking forward to when i can open it up where i left off when life wasn't quite as crazy as it is now and continue giggling at boswell's madness. although the book is titled 'the life of samuel johnson', i am going to need to get a proper biography of the great doctor because i am completely distracted by boswell in this one and can't seem to make myself care about johnson. boswell pushes himself into the narrative at every opportunity and then tells us he's not doing it to draw attention to himself but simply to show off some particular aspect of dr. johnson - kind of like kahn's son in "my architect". johnson ends up coming off a pale fire to boswell bright sun. (sorry i couldn't help myself from writing that last sentence). I decided to buy the book after losing my heart and mind to vladmir nabokov's pale fire which uses a quote from this book as it's epigram.
June 19, 2009
Full of falsities. And it has probably done as much harm as good to our understanding of its remarkable subject. Still, it's very difficult not to love this book. What a hoot. Enjoy yourself - it's difficult not to. And take your time. But don't for a minute fool yourself into thinking this book is about Samuel Johnson.
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