The Supplicating Voice: The Spiritual Writings of Samuel Johnson

By Samuel Johnson

A unique one-volume selection of Samuel Johnson's writings on spiritual and moral topics provides an unusually inspiring portrait of the man and his thought. Most readers know Dr. Johnson (1709--1784) as the formidable compiler of his famous Dictionary and as the witty conversationalist portrayed in Boswell's Life . By contrast, this book-which draws on little-known unsigned sermons he wrote for hire for clergy friends, his private prayers and devotions, essays, poems, diaries, letters, and even key definitions from the Dictionary-offers a rare opportunity to discover Johnson's rich insight and consoling spirituality gathered in one place. Boswell observed that "He was a sincere and zealous ChristianÉ. He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion and morality; both from a regard for the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order." This Vintage Spiritual Classics Original opens a window on the moral universe of the leading English writer of the eighteenth century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375725679
• ISBN13: 9780375725678
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"