Thanks to Boswell’s monumental biography of Samuel Johnson, we remember Dr. Johnson today as a great wit and conversationalist, the rationalist epitome and the sage of the Enlightenment. He is more often quoted than read, his name invoked in party conversation on such diverse topics as marriage, sleep, deceit, mental concentration, and patriotism, to generally humorous effect. But in Johnson’s own day, he was best known as an essayist, critic, and lexicographer: a gifted writer possessed of great force of mind and wisdom. Writing a century after Johnson, Ruskin wrote of Johnson’s essays: He “taught me to measure life, and distrust fortune…he saved me forever from false thoughts and futile speculations.” Peter Martin here presents “the heart of Johnson,” a selection of some of Johnson’s best moral and critical essays. At the center of this collection are the periodical essays from the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler. Also included are Johnson’s great moral fable, Rasselas; the Prefaces to the Dictionary and his edition of Shakespeare; and selections from Lives of the Poets. Together, these works—allied in their literary, social, and moral concerns—are the ones that continue to speak urgently to readers today.
(20090901)
Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
Readers should find much pleasure and insight in this collection.
--Anthony Pucci (Library Journal 20091008)
We see in [Johnson's] essays the tiny brushwork of brilliant self-portraiture; we hear the rhythm of moral seriousness, the sound of contemplation as it engages with the questions of how to live and how to manage in the face of death. But most of all we feel the reach of an author--a writer attempting to reach past self-doubt, poverty, cant, and orthodoxy, in order to assert the power of individual authorship and free thinking in the face of more nebulous authorities. Samuel Johnson may have failed often enough to be personable, but he nevertheless freed subjectivity...and brought both dignity and self-sufficiency to the writing game, allowing authors to be who they chose to be, unshackled from patronage and the requirement to please great men. We see it in his essays and we see it again in his Lives of the Poets: a writer's writer, beckoning individual creative power out of the mire of dependency, making the work answerable only to high standards of excellence stringently applied.
--Andrew O'Hagan (New York Review of Books 20100201)
This handsome book, with its fine printing and striking cover, commemorates the 2009 tercentennial of Johnson's birth by introducing uninitiated readers to the most accessible of his writing, Martin satisfies this aim well, producing a title that serves as a companion to his Samuel Johnson: A Biography.
--C. S. Vilmar (Choice 20100614)
Peter Martin, who joined the crowded ranks of Johnson's biographers last year, has given us a fair representation of [his] works here...Harvard Press deserves lavish praise for producing a handsome, well-made edition.
--Barton Swaim (Weekly Standard )
--Anthony Pucci (Library Journal 20091008)
We see in [Johnson's] essays the tiny brushwork of brilliant self-portraiture; we hear the rhythm of moral seriousness, the sound of contemplation as it engages with the questions of how to live and how to manage in the face of death. But most of all we feel the reach of an author--a writer attempting to reach past self-doubt, poverty, cant, and orthodoxy, in order to assert the power of individual authorship and free thinking in the face of more nebulous authorities. Samuel Johnson may have failed often enough to be personable, but he nevertheless freed subjectivity...and brought both dignity and self-sufficiency to the writing game, allowing authors to be who they chose to be, unshackled from patronage and the requirement to please great men. We see it in his essays and we see it again in his Lives of the Poets: a writer's writer, beckoning individual creative power out of the mire of dependency, making the work answerable only to high standards of excellence stringently applied.
--Andrew O'Hagan (New York Review of Books 20100201)
This handsome book, with its fine printing and striking cover, commemorates the 2009 tercentennial of Johnson's birth by introducing uninitiated readers to the most accessible of his writing, Martin satisfies this aim well, producing a title that serves as a companion to his Samuel Johnson: A Biography.
--C. S. Vilmar (Choice 20100614)
Peter Martin, who joined the crowded ranks of Johnson's biographers last year, has given us a fair representation of [his] works here...Harvard Press deserves lavish praise for producing a handsome, well-made edition.
--Barton Swaim (Weekly Standard )
About the Author
Peter Martin has taught English literature on both sides of the Atlantic and is the author of A Life of James Boswell.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Oxford Anthology is decidedly better.,
By
This review is from: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
Well, if I've only given this four stars, and not five, it's not due to any failure of Samuel Johnson's. Everything in this book is fine. But the anthology published by Oxford (edited by Donald Greene) is decidedly better. The Oxford Anthology has twice as many of his essays, the Preface to Shakespeare is -complete-, not "From...", and the complete preface to the Dictionary; it also has his short fiction Rasselas (complete), as well as a sermon or two and some early examples of his biographies; the Vision of Theodore, Hermit of Tenerife. Honestly, I can't complain about ANY anthology of Johnson; and this will do you very well. But the Oxford Anthology will do you so much better.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In His Own Words,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings (Hardcover)
A must purchase for fans of Samuel Johnson. The informed editor, Peter Martin, judiciously has selected portions from Dr. Johnson's wide written legacy and made them available in a convenient form for the modern reader. Mr. Martin allows his hero, Dr. Johnson, to speak for himself without cluttering this book with his own commentary and asides.
(I do highly recommend Peter Martin's 2008 biography of Samuel Johnson, in which the editor of this book does give his commentary on the powerful life of the English man of letters.) I have read many books about Dr. Johnson: this one provided me with the handy opportunity to consider selections from his own writings that I had previously been aware of only indirectly, such as "Lives of the Poets" and "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia."
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
