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The Life of Samuel Johnson

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 1,194 ratings · 102 reviews

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

Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail. This irrepressible Scotsman was 'always studying human nature and making exper

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Hardcover, 1344 pages

Published January 11th 1993 by Everyman's Library (first published 1790)

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Apr 11, 2011 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: johnsoniana

This is a book which is not about a thing but is the thing itself. I think there’s a complicated German philosophical term for that.

In the history books they will tell you Samuel Johnson is dead these 200 years, but I say No Sir. He’s alive, here, right here. He’s walking and talking and wringing the necks of fools right here.

In this book’s oceanic vastness of pages Boswell the drunk, the fool, the butt of japes, the ignoble toady, creates the reality tv of 18th century London. There are verbat...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Douglas Dalrymple rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is where I’ve spent most of my reading time the past few weeks. My first reading of Boswell’s Life of Johnson was, in fact, the reading of an abridgment. This time, I swallowed the whole 1,200 pages. I’m still digesting and may post something more here by way of a review in the days or weeks to come. For now, I’ll just say that I’m pretty sure Dr Johnson would dislike me. He doesn’t seem to have liked Americans at all (a bunch of vile Whigs!). I doubt whether I would have liked Dr Johnson e...more

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Jun 11, 2013 Charles rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here is an experiment in book reviewing. I can't add anything to the mass of opinion about Johnson. So al alternative:

1971-1972 Me and Samuel Johnson

In 1971, a division. The basics are in place, grown-up life is beginning. The ways of knowing are established (in 1971 I was still waiting on history) and their associated modes of production - how to write, compose, do philosophy are known in a preliminary fashion. The period of euphoric, youthful discovery is over: nine important authors in about...more Here is an experiment in book reviewing. I can't add anything to the mass of opinion about Johnson. So al alternative:

1971-1972 Me and Samuel Johnson

In 1971, a division. The basics are in place, grown-up life is beginning. The ways of knowing are established (in 1971 I was still waiting on history) and their associated modes of production - how to write, compose, do philosophy are known in a preliminary fashion. The period of euphoric, youthful discovery is over: nine important authors in about twelve years. There will be only nine more in the next thirty.

A division, then. With Johnson was added the new element of Last Things. Last Things are what you begin to think about once the fruit of knowledge starts to ferment on your stomach.

Boswell's life of Johnson was the first used book I bought. (Rare books continue to be largely beyond me.) I don't remember where the motivation to read Boswell came from, but by triangulating the Berkeley book shops I found a nice copy of the Heritage edition with the annotations by Mrs. Thrale, three crisp slip-cased volumes for $24, the most expensive book I'd bought to date. I had to think about it for a week. (Only a couple of years later Gravity's Rainbow was published at $15, about twice what novels usually sold for, and it would be twenty years before I was again as well off as I was selling hardware in San Francisco.)

It wasn't long before I’d read more about Johnson than anyone, until a met a couple of Johnson scholars. I think Bulwer's Pelham must have been at that time the earliest English text that I liked at all excepting some of Shakespeare and Chaucer. In graduate school they couldn't even get me to read Dostoevsky. I've been working my way backwards since, but I don't think I'll make it to Smollett in time. And there's my professional interest in the dictionary of course, as well as Johnson's role in the transformation of the economic basis of authorship. When I discovered Orestes Brownson (while vainly looking up my own name in the University of Oregon card catalog) I thought it was so queer that a man would write a whole periodical all by himself. I suppose I must not have known about The Tatler and The Spectator and I'm sure I hadn't paid any attention to Johnson before 1971. How is it possible for someone to be so badly taught? More importantly, how is it possible for someone to pass the GRE with this kind of ignorance? I was lucky to get 78 questions on Swinburne and not Smollett. Swinburne I'd heard of, God knows why.

None of that is the real thing.

You have to realize that before I was forty I'd only read two books more than once, other than the Bible and some Donald Duck comic books, the only movie I ever saw again was some James Coburn thing because we got in late and missed the first ten minutes, and twice though an unfamiliar classical piece was pretty well max.

Now, in the person of Samuel Johnson, through the medium of James Bowell, I discovered Death. This was not as yet a really black thing, more of a soft buttery chocolate color, kind of an indulgence. But I grasped Johnson's fear. His grinding desires and frustrations were real to me in a way not encountered before, probably because I had up to that time operated on a pretty simple hypothesis of them that wants, gets. Johnson's dignity under the weight of all his fears and liabilities revealed to me someone who has seen the worst and accepted it. Not got beyond it. Johnson appears to have medicated himself by translating from Greek into Latin, though Boswell mentions "remedies" which everyone experimented with in those days. But Johnson's primary source of strength, his recourse, was his character. Here was a man to emulate.

Plenty of authors and artists deal in Last Things. Penderecki's horrifying Auschwitz memorial for example. Or Mahler, whose Kindertotenleider but more especially the fourth movement of the fifth symphony when the bass viols sink back to the tonic after the last wave of anguish has washed over me. That's not it. It's not just the regret or the bitterness or the loneliness (or more existentially, abandonment) or whatever. It's the relationship of the artist to Last Things that counts here: the resolve to face the whirlwind. And be blown away if necessary.

I notice that in the student lounge they all play Beethoven. It must attract women (only guys play that piano). Why is that?
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Apr 02, 2013 Blake Nelson rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my all time favorite books. Read this in college and was devoted to it, ending my letters with longwinded salutations in the style of Boswell and Johnson, whose letters I read, when I'd finished this great book.

Weird that just in the time since then, the 1980s, enough has happened that this now feels more distant historically. And the slightly slow style--it's actually very quick and succinct compared to the writing style of the time--made it very hard to focus on.

I couldn't get very fa...more

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Aug 09, 2007 Mishka rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiosnbios

i've read half this book so far and, as with all terribly good, terribly long books that you don't rush through in one go, it's comforting to know that it's at home waiting for me. i'm looking forward to when i can open it up where i left off when life wasn't quite as crazy as it is now and continue giggling at boswell's madness. although the book is titled 'the life of samuel johnson', i am going to need to get a proper biography of the great doctor because i am completely distracted by boswell...more

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Jan 02, 2013 umberto rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

I walked to visit Dr. Johnson's House at 17 Gough Square, London in England on July 5, 1997 in the evening alone. I also bought this great biography there (10.99 pounds) and had since kept reading off and on till I reached its final page on November 5, 2001. I had known this book since my early teens and thus I have my own respect for Dr. Johnson for his humility with his literary brilliance as well as his fame and recognition from the Universities of Dublin and Oxford with the two honorary doct...more

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May 05, 2012 Paul McMahon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Boswell’s Life of Johnson is one of the most famous biographies in the English language. Its subject is one of the most celebrated English men of letters. But oddly, a reader of this lengthy encomium might come away wondering exactly why Johnson is so celebrated.

In fact, it is a stretch to call this a biography at all. It does not paint a complete portrait of Johnson by any means. It does little to explicate his works or put them in the context of his life. What it does, is provide long successi...more Boswell’s Life of Johnson is one of the most famous biographies in the English language. Its subject is one of the most celebrated English men of letters. But oddly, a reader of this lengthy encomium might come away wondering exactly why Johnson is so celebrated.

In fact, it is a stretch to call this a biography at all. It does not paint a complete portrait of Johnson by any means. It does little to explicate his works or put them in the context of his life. What it does, is provide long succession of anecdotes of Boswell’s personal interactions and experiences with Johnson. These, apart from a brief trip the two made to Scotland together, seem to consist mainly of dinner parties, tea time and long nights before the fire with a bottle of port. Even the famous Literary Club which Johnson presided over is given relatively short shrift.

Boswell first met Johnson in 1763, when Johnson was already 54 and years after his defining work, the Dictionary, was published and his reputation established. Boswell does zoom through a (cursory) summary of Johnson’s life to the point of their meeting, but the bulk of this book is devoted to detailing conversations, both private ones between Boswell and Johnson alone, and ones that took place among Johnson and his illustrious circle of acquaintances. And this detail does establish Johnson as master of the epigram and quick-witted riposte. It also establishes him as a formidable adversary in debate (Goldsmith said of him, “There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”), as condescending, opinionated and overbearing. He was rigidly Anglican, rigidly Tory, rigidly prejudiced (not least against the Scots, Boswell’s own nationality). He rarely left England – but after all, London was the center of the universe (“when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." (Sounds like something Andi would say about New York!)). He hated the Americans (“…order cannot be had but by subordination.”).

In short, Johnson comes across as a not very sympathetic character. But somehow he was a hot ticket in London’s intellectual and social circles, never seeming to be without a dinner invitation or the opportunity to pass a few weeks at someone’s estate in the country. His Literary Club boasted a membership that makes Ben Franklin’s Junto seem bush league: Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Joshua Reynolds, to name just the ones I’ve heard of. And Boswell’s affection for him is boundless, despite all the wisecracks about the Scots. Oh yes, he loved his wife (who Boswell never met) and he loved his cat, Hodge.

And though it might have been uncomfortable for a lesser man to engage Johnson in conversation, it is entertaining from the safe distance of two and a quarter centuries to read about his domination of the drawing room. (It’s fun to imagine what an evening with him and Oscar Wilde might have been like.) But to assess Johnson’s place in the literary history of the English speaking world, Boswell’s Life won’t do.

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Jan 21, 2009 Eric marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: currently-neglecting

I put this down because I didn't think I had the time or attention to devote to all 1200 pages of it--but though long, it's not arduous reading. Exceedingly pleasant, in fact. And Johnson is a hero. Richard Howard, in a poem somewhere, referred to the 'glossy carapace' of 18th century diction; Boswell, on his own and aided by copious extracts from Johnson and others, forms a treasure chest of elegantly turned utterance.

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Dec 28, 2009 Yngvild rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

It is a pity that the only long biography we have of The Life of Samuel Johnson is the one by James Boswell. For a man who claimed to have been an intimate of Dr Johnson and a great admirer, the biography left me with no clear picture of either Johnson the man or Johnson the writer.

For example, I would dearly like to know more about how Johnson approached his great dictionary of The English Language, but all Boswell can come up with is this snippet of conversation between Johnson and himself.

H

...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Ronald Wise rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very complete biography of British literary giant Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), extensively annotated by the author in later editions, and further annotated by the editor of the sixth edition, Edmond Malone. Reading the lengthy footnotes was necessary for background information on the many people casually mentioned in the text, most of them well-known people of that time. Around page 900, however, I despaired at how long it was taking to read this book, and began ignoring the footnotes. I happen...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Edward rated it 5 of 5 stars

Reading this book was like spending time talking to a good friend who is curious, interested in new ideas, gives odd twists to old ones, is original in his thoughts, a person you look forward to seeing. The book is loosely organized chronologically so I read it over a period of months, a few pages at a time – no problem of forgetting what I had read as every entry is on a new topic. To read more than that would be overloading your mind, and in fact on a few occasions Boswell complains of that, c...more Reading this book was like spending time talking to a good friend who is curious, interested in new ideas, gives odd twists to old ones, is original in his thoughts, a person you look forward to seeing. The book is loosely organized chronologically so I read it over a period of months, a few pages at a time – no problem of forgetting what I had read as every entry is on a new topic. To read more than that would be overloading your mind, and in fact on a few occasions Boswell complains of that, commenting that Johnson talked so much and so well about so many things that he couldn’t remember all of what worth writing down.

Johnson was not always easy to be around – he could be cranky, disputatious, arrogant, a downright pain-in-the-ass at times, and he would no doubt today be diagnosed as a depressive, based on comments like this one by Boswell;

"The great business of his life (he said) was to escape from himself; this disposition he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company."

But at the same time he could be generous, forgiving, downright humble, and could on occasion even laugh at himself. Boswell met Johnson when he was 22 and Johnson was 53 and to read the book, you’d think Boswell was Johnson’s shadow. In fact, I read that he spent relatively little time with Johnson and that a lot of his material came from secondary sources such as letters, Johnson’s writings, and reports of others who knew him. But whether Boswell, consciously or not, was creating a mythical Johnson is for me beside the point. I just found the “biography” wonderfully entertaining. Johnson could say more in a sentence than most people in a paragraph. A few very brief samplings of THE LIFE:

"Johnson was much attached to London: he observed, that a man sorted his mind better there than anywhere else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved and his faculties apt to degenerate from want of exercise and competition." Johnson was a urban creature to the core – he needed the city to stimulate his imagination.

"I am willing to love all mankind, EXCEPT AN AMERICAN, and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he 'breathed out threatenings and slaughter', calling them Rascals - Robbers - Pirates, and vowing he'd burn and destroy them". Johnson was deeply conservative and saw the American Revolution as a dangerous overturning of a natural order. As for “burning Americans”, had he lived another 30 years (he died in l784 at the age of 75), he would have been satisfied at seeing the British burn Washington in the War of 1812.

"I mentioned politics. Johnson said, 'You may well ask if I hanged myself today. Sir, I'd as soon have a man to break my bones as talk to me of public affairs, internal or external. I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be" Take heart, readers whose presidential candidate has been defeated, Johnson felt the depths of political despair as well.

The best way I can think of to conclude is to quote Boswell and Johnson on how to read a book, particularly this one:

“No, Sir, do YOU read books through?” asked Johnson. His way is probably the best one of undertaking this book. Open at random, read here and there, forward and back, wholly according to inclination; follow the practice of Johnson and all good readers of ‘tearing the heart” out of it. In this way you most readily come within the reach of its charm and power. Then, not content witih a part, seek the unabridged whole, and gow into the infinite possibilities of it.”

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Feb 07, 2010 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

This was my first e-book, and I got it for free through Project Gutenburg. I've been reading it on my iPod iTouch for 15 to 30 minutes at a time - whenever standing in line, stuck in traffic, in bed before sleep - since Christmas. It wasn't really a comprehensive biography so much as a series of anecdotes, conversations the author had noted in his diary. Very repetitive, but here and there were some interesting details. Like the fact that Johnson most likely had Tourette's Syndrome. And that he...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Rozzer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: britain, favorites, reviewed, own

Eclipse first, the rest nowhere. Yes, people, this is it. The BEST biography ever written anywhere in any language. You may not previously have made the acquaintance of Jamie or the good Doctor, but after having read this incredible work they will be your friends for life. It's true. Eighteenth Century London is long ago and, for most of us, far away. Few of us have ever known men to wear knee-pants and tricorne hats as these did, or even seen the huge, thirty-yard dress productions that the lad...more

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Mar 13, 2012 Adam Stevenson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This may be one of the very few books where I feel an abridgement is necessary. I plunged through the whole unabridged biography and the amount of times I wondered whether another letter to the publisher about typeface was really required was pretty frequent.

That said, this book was such a rich, engaging and deeply immersive look at Johnson and his coterie (including Goldsmith who I developed a fondness for) that when it came to ending the book, I found myself crying for the death of Samuel John...more

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Sep 02, 2010 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 18th-century-classics, biography, brit-lit, classics-of-biography-and-memoir

I am ~1/6 of the way through an abridged (at 600 pages!) edition of this work, right about the point at which Samuel Johnsonis writing prologues for the benefit of granddaughter;John Milton's granddaughter; this part is particularly lovely, and the first actual criticism of Johnson's work. I wonder, had I chosen to try the unabridged work, if there would be more of this? I feel like I've been reading list upon list of works that Johnson has written, but have learned nothing about them, except th...more

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Jul 25, 2010 Richard added it

Boswell's epic chronicle is indulgent and idiosyncratic, but incredibly readable after more than 200 years. Boswell not only brings a version of Johnson to life (how accurately this version reflects the real thing is a matter of academic debate) - the accumulation of character observations, recurring themes, and miscellaneous anecotes and discussions immerse the reader in his entire milieu and the public intellectual life of the era. Among Johnson's associates, Oliver Goldsmith is particularly m...more Boswell's epic chronicle is indulgent and idiosyncratic, but incredibly readable after more than 200 years. Boswell not only brings a version of Johnson to life (how accurately this version reflects the real thing is a matter of academic debate) - the accumulation of character observations, recurring themes, and miscellaneous anecotes and discussions immerse the reader in his entire milieu and the public intellectual life of the era. Among Johnson's associates, Oliver Goldsmith is particularly memorable (and humorous), as is Mrs Thrale - although in the latter case, Boswell is clearly settling scores with a rival; there are also interesting accounts of Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, and Edmund Burke, among many others: while off-stage lurk figures such as David Hume (whose atheism seems continually to unnerve Boswell), Benjamin Franklin, and Voltaire.

As regards religion, the book is a particularly useful source for the "ordinary" religious thinking of an educated Christian of the age - an age in which sermons by bishops and vicars were required general reading (Johnson himself ghost-wrote a few for clerics). Johnson's personal piety is strongly attested, as well as his (at times infamously morbid) anxiety over his sinfulness and his ultimate fate at Judgement. Various religious figures still known today appear - George Whitefield was briefly encountered at Oxford, although Johnson was not impressed. Later, there are all-too-brief accounts of meetings with John Wesley (Johnson thought Wesley too credulous regarding an account of a ghost, although he was himself a fascinated agnostic on the topic in general) and with Hannah More, the woman who links Johnson and his circle to the age of the Victorians. Milton's elderly granddaughter makes an early appearance, and the book also memorialises many lesser-remembered clerics and bishops. Johnson also famously counsels the doomed Rev Dr William Dodd as he prepares for execution.

Boswell also consults Johnson for advice on various legal matters connected to his work as a lawyer, and this means that various cases have been preserved for posterity: most memorably, we read about a teacher on trial for excessively beating a boy, and about a physician who was suing for libel for having been referred to as a mere "doctor of medicine", in distinction from his colleagues. The last year also contains some interesting medical details - somewhat poignantly from today's perspective, given the uselessness of some of the treatments (some sort of skin irritant applied to the head following a stroke is perhaps the worst of them).

As expected, there is also lots of information about publishing and bookselling, and discussions about language and writing. A firm line is taken against the habit of dropping the final "k" from words like "publick" and "critick". Boswell is particularly keen to ensure that such a thing doesn't become the general practice.(less)

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Jul 26, 2010 E. Thomas rated it 2 of 5 stars

I would have enjoyed The Life of Johnson more had Boswell not provided so many reasons to doubt his truth-telling. This hagiography was first published as a corrective to less flattering contemporary accounts, such as that written by Esther Thrale. No doubt the Doctor was an irascible character. Today he would be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Boswell uses tact in recording instances of the above, presumably in order to safeguard his friend's reputation. Less...more

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Nov 26, 2009 umberto rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

I learned a lot from reading this great biography, for instance, Dr. Samuel Johnson simply advised his close friends, "Be always busy" and "When you are solitary, be not idle, when you are idle, be not solitary," etc. in which I think they are witty, practical and kind from such a great man of letters to the world. Keep reading this book sometime will enrich you with good advice to our decent living on and on.

At first, you may find it a bit difficult to read this groundbreaking biography which J...more

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Nov 17, 2008 Brad rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english-history

The best way to read Boswell's Life of Johnson is this way: via a somewhat cheesy, "classic library" volume of a Great Classics type of series. The book looks like one of those books you would find in the movie set of a lawyer's office, trying to look distinguished and old, although it feels plasticy.

We learn from other sources (outside of Boswell) that Boswell himself was something of an annoying 18th century star f__ker, but thank God he was - because reading this book is like being a part of...more

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Oct 17, 2008 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-lit

James Boswell is for some the ideal scribe, for others a sycophantic toady. Edmund Wilson, for example, memorably labeled him "a vain and pushing diarist." Boswell can even be seen as someone unconsciously intent on undermining his idol in sonorous, balanced sentences. Early on in his massive Life, he puts all manner of ideas into our heads with his boobish attempts to clear the youthful Johnson of potential impropriety: "His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, very transient; an...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Razi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The good old grand daddy of literary biographies, took me back 25 years to the days when I studied 'The Age of Johnson' as part of a course in the History of English Literature. Johnson did not belong to an age, the age belonged to him. The whole 18th century is here, the wits, the battle of wits, the satire, the translations, the biographies, the pamphelets, the manners, the 'esprit de geometrie', Addison, Steele, Goldsmith, Pope, Swift, Gray, Burke, Gibbon, Garrick, Cibber the full works. John...more

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Aug 22, 2008 Autumn rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book, it's so funny. Boswell was like Johnson's wingman, he kind of followed him around and then wrote this biography that quoted him on all the funny things he said and how much he liked his cat and how weird he was (there is a lot about his cat). Did Johnson invent the dictionary?

I googled so that I could share a couple of my favorite Johnson quotes, which are pretty widely known, but come from this book which is definitely worth reading if you like biographies:

"Sir, a woman's pre...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Ver2car marked it as to-read

Decided to do a Wikipedia read on this man. The book is too daunting. Johnson's claim to fame was the writing of a dictionary. Quite a feat by himself way back then. He became famous for his wit and his writing but the writing consisted mostly of being a critic of other writers. I decided I wanted to read the book because Dinesh D'Souza said it was the best biography ever written in the English language. Well that caught my attention. But I will pass on this one.

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Mar 03, 2012 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, ebook, gutenberg

Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of those books which learned people are told to read but few seldom do. Because of its availability through Project Guthenberg, I undertook to amend that deficiency in my own instance. (Okay, I give up, I can't think that way, let alone write it.)

Frankly, I almost quit due to both the antique style and Boswell's gushing hero worship, however I eventually got a feel for both and plunged on. It was worth it. Johnson was probably not an easy man to know. He certainl...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graduate, nonfiction, memoirs

Boswell's construction of Johnson and his contemporaries is fascinating. At the centre of everything, and the only person who truly understands Johnson, is Boswell. Needless to say, this is not an impartial account of Johnson's life. Rather, it's clear that Boswell is keen to set himself up as Johnson's only indispensable friend, to the exclusion of nearly all others. Singled out for particular cruelty are Hester Piozzi neé Thrale and the other Bluestockings.

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Mar 17, 2013 Giju Abraham rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finally finished this book and it feels like a load has been taken off my back. I've been stuck with this book for months and is easily the longest book I've ever read. Little did I know that what is considered to be 'one of the greatest biographies ever' will be so dull and drab. Samuel Johnson was truly a great scholar with a sense of humour. But I wouldn't say that about his friend and biographer James Boswell.

Reproducing volumes of letters that Samuel Johnson wrote and received is definit...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Rachel rated it 1 of 5 stars

So many times I have tried to read this and must conclude I am simply not heavyweight enough to enjoy this sort of thing. It is well written but the amount of footnotes is phenomenal. Should one read them or ignore them?? In addition the other people in the book - well known in their day - are all very obscure to me and I cannot drum up any interest in their doings. Oh dear.

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Jun 18, 2011 Beka rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading the reviews, I am itching to download a copy and reread this little by little, because it's been so long since I read it. I love this kind of anecdotally written book that gives me glimpses of a different time and into the lives of the movers and shakers of the day. I remember being very entertained by this, although I wouldn't strictly call it a biography.

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Jan 14, 2011 Catherine Mustread rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Catherine by: Kate

Shelves: classics, non-fiction, biography, england, 1700s, daily-lit

Couldn't seem to focus on this although parts of it I really liked, other parts not so much. Because it was abridged? Because I read it over four months in short doses through DailyLit.com?

My favorite quote is "BOSWELL. 'Is not the Giant's-Causeway worth seeing?' JOHNSON. 'Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.'" This describes my recent inclination NOT to go places.

End of his life, end of the book: "I shall, therefore, not say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend,...more

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Jun 18, 2009 Will Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Full of falsities. And it has probably done as much harm as good to our understanding of its remarkable subject. Still, it's very difficult not to love this book. What a hoot. Enjoy yourself - it's difficult not to. And take your time. But don't for a minute fool yourself into thinking this book is about Samuel Johnson.

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About James Boswell

James Boswell, 10th Laird of Auchinleck and 1st Baronet (October 29, 1740 - May 19, 1795) was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck and his wife Euphemia Erskine, Lady Auchinleck. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. Boswell, who is best known as Samuel...more

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“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.” — 26 people liked it

“Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?” — 16 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/688826.The_Life_of_Samuel_Johnson?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1177242050l/688826.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/688826.The_Life_of_Samuel_Johnson?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell[/url]

The Life of Samuel Johnson

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