Life of Johnson: Unabridged (The ^AWorld's Classics)

By James Boswell

Book Overview

In Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality, in a biography to which we owe much of our knowledge of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192815377
• ISBN13: 9780192815378
• Release Date: December 1980
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 1492 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.3" x 2.0" x 4.6"

Customer Reviews

A Great Book, Funny and Profound

Note: I made some immature Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books that attempted to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted. I must have really burned him or her because I've deleted this review and re-posted it and within an hour, I had a "not helpful" vote. Give me a break. That person's faith must be very fragile, indeed. Oh, well. I'm trying to be "helpful," and you can see that it took some work to put this review together. So, your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and I hope you find some enjoyable quotations (below) from Boswell's wonderful book, but first a little history. Samuel Johnson, the irascible but generous lexicographer of the eighteenth century, is mostly remembered because of Boswell, and Boswell is remembered because he wrote Johnson's biography. At the time, Johnson was already famous for his "Dictionary of the English Language," an impressive work for the year 1755. Among many other writings, Johnson put out an edition of Shakespeare's works (1765), with valuable notes that are still referred to today. Johnson published a "series of grave and moral discourses" in the periodical called the Rambler, but when it was translated into Italian, it came out as the ludicrous "El Vagabondo," something far from Johnson's pious intentions. And of good intentions, it was Johnson who said, "Sir, Hell is paved with good intentions." "(Johnson's) defense of tea against Mr. Jonas Hanway's violent attack upon that elegant and popular beverage, shows how very well a man of genius can write upon the slightest subject, when he writes, as the Italians say, con amore." Johnson despised Americans and was prejudiced against Scotland. He said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Johnson was a male chauvinist. Yet, he was "a king of men." He was a "robust genius, born to grapple with whole libraries," and although "indolence and procrastination were inherent in his constitution, whenever he made an exertion he did more than any one else." As a person who is afraid of death in the normal sense, I was surprised that in spite of being very religious, Johnson had an extreme fear of death. "'The better a man is, the more afraid he is of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity.' Said Boswell, "Johnson owned, that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation, was mysterious; and said, 'Ah! We must wait till we are in another state of being, to have many things explained to us.' Even the powerful mind of Johnson seemed foiled by futurity." Boswell's commentary brings to mind a story told by St. Augustine in his monumental City of God. A philosopher was abroad a ship captained by a bad man, and after a violent storm, the fearless captain jeered the philosopher for his terror. Said the philosopher, quoting from a similar incident that occurred to the pagan Aristippus, 'A rogue need not worry about losing his worthless life, but Ari

An Epic Friendship

Charged with everything from homosexuality to hatred of his subject, Boswell gives us a great gift in this monumental work. What must be the greatest document of a friendship besides being a fine piece of biography and an important resource for social historians, The Life of Johnson should not be missed by any student of eighteenth-century English literature. Other than Johnson's literary opinions, you can learn about his days's thoughts on anxiety and religious doubts. So turn your TV off for a month and read a great book and become acquainted with some truly interesting and intellectual people.