Synopses & Reviews
A major academic controversy has raged in recent years over the analysis of the political and religious commitments of Samuel Johnson, the most commanding of the 'commanding heights' of eighteenth-century English letters. This book, one of a trilogy from Palgrave, brings that debate to a decisive conclusion, retrieving the 'historic Johnson.'
About the Author
JONATHAN CLARK was educated at Cambridge,UK, where he took his PhD, and was a Fellow of Peterhouse. He was subsequently a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor at the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago. He currently holds the Hall Distinguished Professorship of British History at the University of Kansas, and is writing a study of the political and social ideas of Thomas Paine.
HOWARD ERSKINE-HILL studied English and Philosophy at Nottingham University, UK; he then taught at University College Swansea. In 1969 he became Lecturer in English at Cambridge, and retired as Professor of English. He holds a Cambridge higher doctorate, is a Fellow of the British Academy, and has recently completed a biography of Alexander Pope.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsNotes on ContributorsPrefaceAbbreviationsIntroductionPlanning a Life of JohnsonAttack and Mask: James Boswell's Indebtedness to Sir John Hawkins's Life of JohnsonBoswell and the Making of Johnson'The Casuistical Question': Oaths and Hypocrisy in the Writings of Johnson and BolingbrokeFire under the Ashes: Johnson's Lives of the Poets as Narratives of HistoryJohnson, Macpherson and the Memoirs of the Marshal Duke of BerwickConclusion: The forgotten Room: Discovery and Denial in Recent Johnson Studies