Samuel Johnson: A Life [Hardcover]

David Nokes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2009

A modern biography of Samuel Johnson that will serve as the definitive work on the legendary British man of letters

In this groundbreaking portrait of Samuel Johnson, David Nokes positions the great thinker in his rightful place as an active force in the Enlightenment, not a mere recorder or performer, and demonstrates how his interaction with life impacted his work. This is the story of how Johnson struggled to define the English language, why he embarked upon such foolhardiness, and where he found the courage to do so. Moving beyond James Boswell’s seminal narrative about the life of the preeminent eighteenth-century novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor, essayist, and lexicographer, this biography addresses his life and action through the hitherto unexplored perspectives of such major players as Johnson’s wife, Tetty; Hester Thrale, in whose household he resided for seventeen years while working on his annotated Shakespeare; and Frances Barber, the black manservant who in many ways was like a son to Johnson. An in-depth interrogation of the primary sources, particularly the letters, offer surprising insight into Johnson’s formative experiences. At last, here’s a reading of the great man that will reveal the rightful glory of an enduring work and an incomparable scholar.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Published on the tercentenary of Dr. Johnson's birth comes yet another biography (after two in 2008) of the greatest personality in English literature. Nokes stakes his ground by putting to rest the notion of Johnson's overwhelming fear of his own insanity—a fact insisted on by Boswell as well as Hester Thrale, a much younger woman in whose husband's household Johnson spent the last 20 years of his life and the woman to whom he entrusted his most intimate confidences. If the massively awkward Johnson had one overarching obsession, it was, in his own withering observation, that too much of his life consisted in time wasted. Nokes, a biographer of Jane Austen and professor at King's College, London, is aware, almost to the point of constraint, that Johnson both invented the modern biography and was himself the subject of the greatest ever written. On the flip side, there is something almost Johnsonian in Nokes's unfashionable but commonsensical approach. For example, in dealing with the infamous padlock belonging to Mrs. Thrale and her teasing journal footnote on it, or in his examination of Johnson's largely unhappy marriage to a woman almost twice his age, Nokes refrains from prurient speculation. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

Nokes’ biography of eighteenth-century England’s greatest literary figure trails Jeffrey Meyers’ and Peter Martin’s Johnson lives by 11 and 14 months, respectively. Like Meyers, Nokes discusses some of Johnson’s writings cursorily. Like Martin, Nokes to some extent structures his book as the successive stories of Johnson’s three great works, the Dictionary, the edition of Shakespeare, and Lives of the Poets. Unlike his predecessors (and Boswell, for that matter), Nokes doesn’t try to dig sexual dirt about the great man and doesn’t represent Johnson’s life as any kind of enormous struggle (the subtitle of Meyers’ book is The Struggle). Meyers may be marginally the better, more fluent writer than Nokes, and Martin is best at bringing Johnson’s associates to life, but if one wanted only the facts of his daily life, perhaps Nokes is to be preferred. None of the three, however, expounds Johnson’s intellectual life—the inspirations of his thought, especially on religion and morals, and why he has been an exemplar of social and cultural conservatism from his day to this. --Ray Olson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1 edition (October 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080508651X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805086515
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nokes On SJ, November 25, 2009

By 

Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Samuel Johnson: A Life (Hardcover)

It is to civilization's benefit that biographies of Samuel Johnson abound, especially in and near the 300th anniversary year of his birth.

David Nokes provides his version of the life in a straightforward text drawn mainly from the letters and other published material of the era related directly to Dr. Johnson. However, there is little help here for the common reader describing the times in which he lived. And, Professor Nokes is one who values the importance of Hester Thrale, far above that of James Boswell, to Doctor Johnson's actual life. (While the Professor is most likely correct on this point, I would much rather have spent an evening or two bending an elbow in London with Boswell than with Thrale.)

This is a good, competent biography; but I would first recommend to interested readers last year's effort by Jeffrey Meyers over the one reviewed here. And I would even more highly recommend "Selected Writings of Samuel Johnson" as edited by Peter Martin. Lastly, please read Boswell's famous work if this book lies unread in your library. (If not in your library, buy it.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unexciting, March 5, 2010

By 

Michael Gunther (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Samuel Johnson: A Life (Hardcover)

Difficult as it may be to write an uninspiring biography of Samuel Johnson, David Nokes has almost succeeded in this book, which is redeemed more by the occasional flashes of Johnson's own wit than by any great felicity of style on the part of the biographer. Even Harold Bloom, in praising Nokes' book, could find no more flattering adjective than "workmanlike" to describe Nokes' writing. One of the great pleasures of reading about a man like Johnson is to become immersed in the great man's overwhelming personality, wit, conversation, and aphorisms. Unfortunately, Nokes's biography doesn't come up to such a standard.

What the reader does get, in reading Nokes, is a workmanlike (there's that word again) account of the progression of Johnson's life; Nokes builds the structure by piling up detail and incident, with some but not a lot of generalizing and interpretation. There's nothing wrong with that approach in general, but in this particular case I found the result a bit too uninspiring to give it a strong recommendation.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Ordinary Biography of an Extraordinary Biographer, January 10, 2010

By 

A. Vairavan "KV" (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Samuel Johnson: A Life (Hardcover)

I bought this book after reading a lavish review of this book by Harold Bloom (titled: The Critic's Critic) in
the NY Times Book Review (Nov.8, 2009). I was disappointed with the early sections of the book, not just because of
my large expectations. In fact until it reaches a stage in Johnson's life when he becomes free from his nagging
poverty I found the book uninteresting. Following Johnson's literary success aand recognition after the publication
of the English language dictionary, the book picks up some momentum and becomes more interesting.

I thought there was far too much attention given to Johnson's deep relations with Mrs. Thrale. Far too little is
said about his servant Frank Barber to whom Johnson must have felt a special bond, having bequethed Barber most
of his wealth. One is left to wonder why so little is said about the latter relationship. Could it be because
not much material in terms of correspondence is available to shed light on this relationship? It should be observed that
the author Nokes relies heavily on correspondence (with very extensive quotes) for much of the book.

A positive feature of the book is the language partially helped by Johnson's own writings. Throughout the book I
could sense that the author is a gifted writer of the English language.