Samuel Johnson Writer

About the book:

Boswell’s Life of Johnson succeeded in creating that rumbustious Toby-jug image of the man which was to become a lasting myth in the public’s imagination. In his own lifetime, his reputation was founded on his achievement as a writer and a scholar. In this refreshing re-assessment Neil Curry charts his professional career, beginning with him establishing the ground rules for lexicography; setting the pattern for editing Shakespeare texts and ending by laying down the foundations of literary criticism. Alongside these outstanding intellectual accomplishments, we are urged to recognise his creative ability and the links which connect his poems, especially ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’, with his Rambler essays and his novella Rasselas.

About the author:

Neil Curry is a poet, translator and literary critic with a particular interest in the eighteenth century, having published works on Alexander Pope. Christopher Smart, William Cowper and William Shenstone. Among his nine poetry collections are Ships in Bottles, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, Walking to Santiago in which he recounts his 500 mile walk along the medieval pilgrim route, and Other Rooms, New & Selected Poems. He has also published The Fable of the World, translations from the French poet Jules Supervielle. His most recent collection is On Keeping Company with Mrs Woolf. He has also edited the Collected Poems of Norman Nicholson.

136 pages

ISBN: 978-1-910996-49-2