The Life of Samuel Johnson (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)

by Angus Calder (Introduction), Angus Calder (Introduction), James Boswell (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $3.25

  The text of this edition is that of Boswell's 1791 first edition, and it remains, by common consent, the greatest biography in the English language. Johnson's centrality in 18th century letters is established not only by Boswell's record of life and conversation, but also by the success of the work in placing him in a literary and cultural context.

• Used

  Paperback
  1980

  $4.33

  Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biograoher.

• New

  Hardcover
  1992

  $19.25

  The most celebrated English biography is a group portrait in which extraordinary man paints the picture of a dozen more. At the centre of a brilliant circle which included Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Fanny Burney and even George III, Boswell captures the powerful, troubled and witty figure of Samuel Johnson, who towers above them all. Yet this is also an intimate picture of domestic life, which mingles the greatest talkers of a talkative age with the hero's humbler friends in a picture which is, before all things, humane. This is a new, corrected, rest and reprinted edition. At 14. 99 for the complete edition of the Life in 1344 pages, it compares with Penguin's abridged edition of just 300 pages of text at 6. 99 and OUP's World Classics unabridged edition printed on newsprint at 10. 99.