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= Life_of_Samuel_Johnson =
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Introduction
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'The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.' (1791) by James Boswell is a
biography of English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson. The
work was from the beginning a universal critical and popular success,
and represents a landmark in the development of the modern genre of
biography. Many have called it the greatest biography written in
English, one of the greatest biographies ever written, and among the
greatest nonfiction books of all time. The book is valued as both an
important source of information on Johnson and his times, as well as
an important and enduring work of literature.
Background
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On 16 May 1763, as a 22-year-old Scot visiting London, Boswell first
met Johnson in the book shop of Johnson's friend Tom Davies. They
quickly became friends, although for many years they met only when
Boswell visited London in the intervals of his law practice in
Scotland. From the age of 20, Boswell kept a series of journals
thoroughly detailing his day-to-day experience. This journal, when
published in the 20th century, filled eighteen volumes, and it was on
this large collection of detailed notes that Boswell would base his
works on Johnson's life. Johnson, in commenting on Boswell's excessive
note-taking, playfully wrote to Hester Thrale, "One would think the
man had been hired to spy upon me".
On 6 August 1773, eleven years after first meeting Boswell, Johnson
set out to visit his friend in Scotland, to begin "a journey to the
western islands of Scotland", as Johnson's 1775 account of their
travels would put it. Boswell's account, 'The Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides' (1786), published after Johnson's death, was a trial of
Boswell's biographical method before commencing his 'Life of Johnson'.
With the success of the 'Journal', Boswell started working on the
"vast treasure of his conversations at different times" that he
recorded in his journals. His goal was to recreate Johnson's "life in
scenes". Because Johnson was 53 when Boswell first met him, the last
20 years of Johnson's life occupy four fifths of the book.
Furthermore, as literary critic Donald Greene has pointed out, Boswell
could have spent no more than 250 days with Johnson and, therefore,
had to have drawn the rest of the material for the 'Life' either from
Johnson himself or from secondary sources recounting various
incidents.
Before Boswell could publish his 'Life of Johnson', other friends of
Johnson's published or prepared their own biographies or collections
of anecdotes on Johnson: John Hawkins, Thrale, Frances Burney, Anna
Seward, Elizabeth Montagu, Hannah More, and Horace Walpole among many.
The last edition Boswell worked on was the third, published after his
death, in 1799.
Biography
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There are many biographies and biographers of Samuel Johnson, but
James Boswell's 'Life of Samuel Johnson' is the best known and most
widely read today. Since first publication it has passed through
hundreds of editions and, on account of its great length, many
selections and abridgements. Yet opinion among 20th-century Johnson
scholars such as Edmund Wilson and Donald Greene is that Boswell's
'Life' "can hardly be termed a biography at all", being merely "a
collection of those entries in Boswell's diaries dealing with the
occasions during the last twenty-two years of Johnson's life on which
they met ... strung together with only a perfunctory effort to fill
the gaps". Furthermore, Greene claims that the work "began with a
well-organized press campaign, by Boswell and his friends, of puffing
and of denigration of his rivals; and was given a boost by one of
Macaulay's most memorable pieces of journalistic claptrap". Instead of
being called a "biography", Greene suggests that the work should be
called an "Ana", a sort of table talk. Boswell's original 'Life',
moreover, "corrects" many of Johnson's quotations, censors many of the
more vulgar comments, and largely ignores Johnson's early years.
According to American academician William Dowling, the image of
Johnson that Boswell creates features elements of "myth":
Modern biographers have since corrected Boswell's errors. This is not
to say that Boswell's work is wrong or of no use: scholars such as
Walter Jackson Bate appreciate the "detail" and the "treasury of
conversation" that it contains. All of Johnson's biographers,
according to Bate, have to go through the same "igloo" of material
that Boswell had to deal with: limited information about Johnson's
first forty years, and an abundance after. Simply put, "Johnson's life
continues to hold attention" and "every scrap of evidence relating to
Johnson's life has continued to be examined and many more details have
been added" because "it is so close to general human experience in a
wide variety of ways".
Critical response
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Edmund Burke told King George III that the work entertained him more
than any other. Robert Anderson, in his 'Works of the British Poets'
(1795), wrote: "With some venial exceptions on the score of egotism
and indiscriminate admiration, his work exhibits the most copious,
interesting, and finished picture of the life and opinions of an
eminent man, that was ever executed; and is justly esteemed one of the
most instructive and entertaining books in the English language."
John Neal praised Boswell's style in 'The Portico' in 1818. The essay
was republished in 'Emerson's United States Magazine' in 1856.
Boswell knew that the charm of Biography is a certain capricious
levity that follows all the rambling of conversation; that the
Biographer should be utterly forgotten; that the reader should feel
acquainted with the man of whom he reads, without remembering a single
word that he has read: -- but in the execution of these just
conceptions, Boswell is continually jogging your elbow, and begging
you to forget him; he is incessantly crowding upon your notice. In
making you intimately acquainted with his hero, Boswell is not
satisfied with telling you, when Samuel Johnson is 'not like other
men' upon any occasion; but he overwhelms you with his proofs, that he
'is' like other men, on occasions when every man, hero or not hero,
'must' act like his neighbour. Boswell is not only the Biographer of
Johnson in his closet; but he is the biographer of the human species
in their most secret retirement.
19th-century criticism
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Macaulay's critique in the 'Edinburgh Review' was highly influential
and established a way of thinking of Boswell and his 'Life of Johnson'
which was to prevail for many years. Macaulay was damning of Croker's
editing: "This edition is ill compiled, ill arranged, ill written, and
ill printed". And the famously ambivalent opinion Macaulay gave of
Boswell himself was that the unquestioned excellence of the 'Life' was
possible only because of traits and habits of Boswell's that Macaulay
saw as contemptible: "Servile and impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a
bigot and a sot, bloated with family pride, and eternally blustering
about the dignity of a born gentleman, yet stooping to be a
talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common butt in the taverns of London[;]
... such was this man, and such he was content and proud to be".
Macaulay also claimed "Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no
second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is
not worth while to place them". Macaulay also criticised (as did
Lockhart) what he saw as a lack of discretion in the way the 'Life'
reveals Johnson's and others' personal lives, foibles, habits and
private conversation; but contended that it was this that made the
'Life of Johnson' a great biography. Without all the qualities which
made him the jest and the torment of those among whom he lived,
without the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, the
toad-eating, the insensitivity to all reproof, he could never have
produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his servitude,
a Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and garrulity were
virtues, an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most
liberal hospitality by the basest violation of confidence, a man
without delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when he
was hurting the feelings of others or when he was exposing himself to
derision; and because he was all this, he has, in an important
department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as
Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson. Macaulay noted
that Boswell could give a detailed account only of Johnson's later
years: "We know him [Johnson], not as he was known to men of his own
generation, but as he was known to men whose father he might have
been" and that long after Johnson's own works had been forgotten, he
would be remembered through Boswell's 'Life': ... that strange figure
which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have
been brought up, the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with
the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the
grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten
and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with
convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it
puffing; and then comes the "Why sir!" and "What then, sir?" and the
"No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through the question, sir!"
What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be
regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion. To
receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius
have in general received only from posterity! To be more intimately
known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!
That kind of fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his
case, the most durable. The reputation of those writings, which he
probably expected to be immortal, is every day fading; while those
peculiarities of manner and that careless table-talk the memory of
which, he probably thought, would die with him, are likely to be
remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of
the globe ..." Thomas Carlyle wrote two essays in 'Fraser's Magazine'
in 1832 in review of Croker's edition. The first of Carlyle's two
essays, on 'Biography', appeared in issue 27, with the second,
'Boswell's Life of Johnson', in issue 28. Carlyle wanted more than
facts from histories and biographies: "The thing I want to see is not
Redbook Lists and Court Calendars, and Parliamentary Registers, but
the LIFE OF MAN in England: what men did, thought, suffered, enjoyed;
the form, especially the spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its
outward environment, its inward principle; 'how' and 'what' it was;
whence it proceeded, whither it was tending." Carlyle professed to
find this in the 'Life', even in its simplest anecdotes: "Some slight,
perhaps mean and even ugly incident if 'real' and well presented, will
fix itself in a susceptive memory and lie ennobled there".
Consequently, "This Book of Boswell’s will give us more real insight
into the 'History of England' during those days that twenty other
Books, falsely entitled “Histories” which take to themselves that
special aim". "How comes it," Carlyle asked, "that in England we have
simply one good Biography, this 'Boswell’s Johnson'?" Carlyle shared
Macaulay's unfavourable verdict on Croker's editorial efforts: "there
is simply no edition of Boswell to which this last would seem
preferable". Carlyle did not, however, share Macaulay's view of
Boswell's character. Boswell, though "a foolish, inflated creature,
swimming in an element of self-conceit"), had had, said Carlyle, the
great good sense to admire and attach himself to Dr Johnson (an
attachment which had little to offer materially) and the 'open loving
heart' which Carlyle thought indispensable for 'knowing' and 'vividly
uttering forth': Boswell wrote a good Book because he had a heart and
an eye to discern Wisdom, and an utterance to render it forth; because
of his free insight, his lively talent, above all, of his Love and
childlike Open-mindedness. His sneaking sycophancies, his greediness
and forwardness, whatever was bestial and earthy in him, are so many
blemishes in his Book, which still disturb us in its clearness; wholly
hindrances, not helps. Towards Johnson, however, his feeling was not
Sycophancy, which is the lowest, but Reverence, which is the highest
of human feelings.
That loose-flowing, careless-looking Work of his is as a picture by
one of Nature's own Artists; the best possible resemblance of a
Reality; like the very image thereof in a clear mirror. Which indeed
it was: let but the mirror be 'clear', this is the great point; the
picture must and will be genuine. How the babbling Bozzy, inspired
only by love, and the recognition and vision which love can lend,
epitomises nightly the words of Wisdom, the deeds and aspects of
Wisdom, and so, by little and little, unconsciously works together for
us a whole Johnsoniad; a more free, perfect, sunlit and
spirit-speaking likeness than for many centuries had been drawn by man
of man!
20th-century reassessment
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More recent critics have been mostly positive. Frederick Pottle calls
the 'Life' "the crowning achievement of an artist who for more than
twenty five years had been deliberately disciplining himself for such
a task." W. K. Wimsatt argues, "the correct response to Boswell is to
'value' the man through the artist, the artist in the man". Leopold
Damrosch claims that the work is of those that "do not lend themselves
very easily to the usual categories by which the critic explains and
justifies his admiration". Walter Jackson Bate emphasised the
uniqueness of the work when he says "nothing comparable to it had
existed. Nor has anything comparable been written since, because that
special union of talents, opportunities, and subject matter has never
been duplicated."
However, Leopold Damrosch sees problems with Boswell's 'Life' if
viewed as a conventional biography: "[T]he usual claim that it is the
world's greatest 'biography' seems to me seriously misleading. In the
first place, it has real defects of organization and structure; in the
second place (and more importantly) it leaves much to be desired as
the comprehensive interpretation of a life." Similarly, although
Donald Greene thought that Boswell's 'The Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides' a "splendid performance", he felt that the 'Life' was
inadequate and Johnson's later years deserved a more accurate
biography.
Notable editions
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The first edition of Boswell's work appeared on 16 May 1791, in two
quarto volumes, with 1,750 copies printed. Once this was exhausted, a
second edition in three octavo volumes was published in July 1793.
This second edition was augmented by "many valuable additions," which
were appended to the 1791 text; according to Boswell's own
"Advertisement," "These have I ordered to be printed separately in
quarto, for the accommodation of the purchasers of the first edition."
The third edition, appearing in 1799 after Boswell's death, was the
responsibility of Edmond Malone, who had been instrumental in the
preparation of the previous editions. Malone inserted the additions in
the text, adding some bracketed and credited notes by himself and
other contributors, including Boswell's son James. This third edition
has been regarded as definitive by many editors. Malone brought out
further editions in 1804, 1807, and 1811.
In 1831, John Wilson Croker produced a new edition which was swiftly
condemned in reviews by Thomas Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle. The
weakness of Croker's notes, criticised by both reviewers, is
acknowledged by George Birkbeck Hill: "His remarks and criticisms far
too often deserve the contempt that Macaulay so liberally poured on
them. Without being deeply versed in books, he was shallow in
himself." More objectionably, Croker interpolated into his Boswell
text from the contemporaneous rival biographies of Johnson. Carlyle
reviews and denounces the editor's procedure as follows: Four Books
Mr. C. had by him, wherefrom to gather light for the fifth, which was
Boswell's. What does he do but now, in the placidest manner,--slit the
whole five into slips, and sew these together into a 'sextum quid',
exactly at his own convenience; giving Boswell the credit of the
whole! By what art-magic, our readers ask, has he united them? By the
simplest of all: by Brackets. Never before was the full virtue of the
Bracket made manifest. You begin a sentence under Boswell's guidance,
thinking to be carried happily through it by the same: but no; in the
middle, perhaps after your semicolon, and some consequent
'for,'--starts up one of these Bracket-ligatures, and stitches you in
from half a page to twenty or thirty pages of a Hawkins, Tyers,
Murphy, Piozzi; so that often one must make the old sad reflection,
Where we are, we know; whither we are going, no man knoweth! A new
edition by George Birkbeck Hill was published in 1887 and returned to
the standard of the third edition text. Hill's work in six volumes is
copiously annotated, and became standard to such an extent that when
in the 20th century, L. F. Powell was commissioned to revise it
(1934-64), Hill's pagination was retained. The single-volume edition
by R. W. Chapman (1953) also remains in print, published by Oxford
University Press.
In 1917, Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964) published an abridged
edition, which is available via Project Gutenberg.
General and cited references and further reading
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* Anderson, Robert ed. 'Works of the British Poets'. Vol. XI. London,
1795.
* .
* .
* Brady, Frank. "Boswell's Self-Presentation and His Critics." 'SEL:
Studies in English Literature 1500-1900', Vol. 12, No. 3, (Summer,
1972), pp. 545-555
* Burke, Edmund. 'Correspondence of Edmund Burke', Vol. VI ed. Alfred
Cobban and R. A. Smith. Chicago, 1958-1968.
*
* Damrosch, Leopold. "The Life of Johnson: An Anti-Theory."
'Eighteenth-Century Studies', Vol. 6, No. 4, (Summer, 1973), pp.
486-505
* Dowling, William. "Biographer, Hero, and Audience in Boswell's Life
of Johnson." 'SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900' Vol. 20,
No. 3 (Summer, 1980), pp. 475-491
* Greene, Donald. "Do We Need a Biography of Johnson's "Boswell"
Years?" 'Modern Language Studies', Vol. 9, No. 3, (Autumn 1979), pp.
128-136
* Johnson, Samuel. 'Letters of Samuel Johnson' Vol II, ed. R. W.
Chapman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952.
* Lustig, Irma S. "Boswell's Literary Criticism in the Life of
Johnson" 'SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900' Vol 6, No 3
(Summer 1966) pp. 529-541
* Pottle, Frederick. 'The Literary Career of James Boswell, Esquire'.
Oxford, 1929.
*
* Tankard, Paul, ed. "The Lives of Johnson." 'Facts and Inventions:
Selections from the Journalism of James Boswell'. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2014.
* Wimsatt, W. K. "The Fact Imagined: James Boswell, in 'Hateful
Contraries', ed. William K Wimsatt. Lexington, Kentucky: University of
Kentucky Press, 1965
External links
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* Scan of 1791 first edition from Google Books:
[
https://archive.org/details/lifesamueljohns72boswgoog Volume I] and
[
https://archive.org/details/lifesamueljohns00baldgoog Volume II].
* (Abridged edition)
*
*
[
https://librivox.org/group/496?primary_key=496&search_category=group&search_page=1&search_form=get_results
Librivox (free, public domain) audiobook recordings of 'The Life of
Samuel Johnson']
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Samuel_Johnson
