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Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage
A critically acclaimed biographer reconstructs the unusual friendship of eighteenth-century poet, playwright, and convicted murderer Richard Savage with a young, unknown, provincial schoolmaster, Samuel Johnson. 10,000 first printing.
260 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
25 people are currently reading
331 people want to read
About the author
Richard Holmes
31 books241 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
See this thread for more information.
Biographer Richard Holmes was born in London, England on 5 November 1945 and educated at Downside School and Churchill College, Cambridge. His first book, Shelley:The Pursuit, was published in 1974 and won a Somerset Maugham Award. The first volume of his biography of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge: Early Visions, was published in 1989 and won the Whitbread Book of the Year award. Dr Johnson & Mr Savage (1993), an account of Johnson's undocumented friendship with the notorious poet Richard Savage, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for biography) in 1993. The second volume of his study of Coleridge, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, was published in 1998. It won the Duff Cooper Prize, the Heinemann Award and was shortlisted for the first Samuel Johnson Prize awarded in 1999.
Richard Holmes writes and reviews regularly for various journals and newspapers, including the New York Review of Books. His most recent book, Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer (2000), continues the exploration of his own highly original biographical method that he first wrote about in Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer (1985). He is also editor of a new series of editions of classic English biographies that includes work by Samuel Johnson, Daniel Defoe and William Godwin.
His latest book, The Age of Wonder (2008), is an examination of the life and work of the scientists of the Romantic age who laid the foundations of modern science. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy and was awarded an OBE in 1992. He was awarded an honorary Litt.D. in 2000 by the University of East Anglia, where he was appointed Professor of Biographical Studies in September 2001.
See this thread for more information.
Biographer Richard Holmes was born in London, England on 5 November 1945 and educated at Downside School and Churchill College, Cambridge. His first book, Shelley:The Pursuit, was published in 1974 and won a Somerset Maugham Award. The first volume of his biography of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge: Early Visions, was published in 1989 and won the Whitbread Book of the Year award. Dr Johnson & Mr Savage (1993), an account of Johnson's undocumented friendship with the notorious poet Richard Savage, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for biography) in 1993. The second volume of his study of Coleridge, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, was published in 1998. It won the Duff Cooper Prize, the Heinemann Award and was shortlisted for the first Samuel Johnson Prize awarded in 1999.
Richard Holmes writes and reviews regularly for various journals and newspapers, including the New York Review of Books. His most recent book, Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer (2000), continues the exploration of his own highly original biographical method that he first wrote about in Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer (1985). He is also editor of a new series of editions of classic English biographies that includes work by Samuel Johnson, Daniel Defoe and William Godwin.
His latest book, The Age of Wonder (2008), is an examination of the life and work of the scientists of the Romantic age who laid the foundations of modern science. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy and was awarded an OBE in 1992. He was awarded an honorary Litt.D. in 2000 by the University of East Anglia, where he was appointed Professor of Biographical Studies in September 2001.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
July 4, 2016
It is the quality of that friendship I have tried to carry back over the dark river, and the impact it has had on the art of biography ever since.
2.5 stars
During 1738 and 1739 the young Samuel Johnson, struggling to find his way in London, made a fast friendship with the poet Richard Savage. The latter having been recently pardoned after murdering a patron in a pub brawl. On a few occasions the pair walked the streets, for want of lodging , and discussed literature and politics throughout the night. There are no surviving correspondence between the pair nor any accounts of anyone seeing them together. What follows is Richard Holmes examining the journals and court records to configure the sequence and significance of this encounter. It is a stretch and the sleuthing is at time tiring. It would've helped if Holmes had a romantic interest during his investigation -- then we could title it Possession.
2.5 stars
During 1738 and 1739 the young Samuel Johnson, struggling to find his way in London, made a fast friendship with the poet Richard Savage. The latter having been recently pardoned after murdering a patron in a pub brawl. On a few occasions the pair walked the streets, for want of lodging , and discussed literature and politics throughout the night. There are no surviving correspondence between the pair nor any accounts of anyone seeing them together. What follows is Richard Holmes examining the journals and court records to configure the sequence and significance of this encounter. It is a stretch and the sleuthing is at time tiring. It would've helped if Holmes had a romantic interest during his investigation -- then we could title it Possession.
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February 1, 2020Eschew Obfuscation. Remember that T-shirt? The joke got on average two laughs, one from you, once you learned what the words meant, and one from the next person you showed it to. Word-snob jokes tend to live short lives like that. What would happen usually was that the other person would smile, once they learned what the words meant, and say, "Nice." Samuel Johnson would not have smiled at it. He would've dropped his glasses, nodded, said, "Indubitably," and gone back to his papers. Except that he wouldn't nod, he would countenance, and he wouldn't say, he would expatiate. In this book, anyway, Anglo-Saxon monosyllables turn into big Latinate doorstops as Johnson packs them with syllables. An edge to him is a circumference. Is it a gift? No, it’s an expedient. There's way too much of this here for me. What's curious, too, is that when it's written the way that Johnson likes – clearly, plainly, and with an ear for truth, etc., etc. – there's a sting and a quickness to English prose that has a lot to do with how close the writing comes to the sound of the liveliest English speech, and he was immersed in that speech, writing his dictionary, in a way that precious few speakers of the language ever are. One wishes that he’d done the dictionary first and this second. The truth is that not many 18th century Britons who weren’t named Samuel Johnson talked the way that he writes. Even he didn’t really talk that way. (Thanks, Boswell.) For me, it makes what should have been a hell of a story – Savage’s – lie still on the page, pinned under the weight of the Augustan verbiage.
March 22, 2016
I believe that this brilliant book utterly demolishes James Boswell's portrait of Samuel Johnson as a clubbable sage and oracle. Holmes proves beyond reasonable doubt that Johnson was a very troubled man - who struggled with emotional dysfunction and suffered terribly, the torments of the damned for much of his life. Johnson's friendship with Savage is Holmes' vehicle for exploring the really pitiable scope and depth of Johnson's disorders.
As far as I can tell Holmes' book prepares us for Jeffrey Meyer's, Samuel Johnson: The Struggle, in which Meyer's focus is Johnson's life-long struggle with his inner demons - which made him the literary Donald Trump of his day - nothing less that a snarling boor-bully, troubled to an extraordinary degree. Indeed, sufficiently troubled to evoke a sense of compassion even in me, who utterly despises bullies of every variety.
Of particular interest to me are the many passages in which Holmes describes the methods he employs to draw conclusions from bits and pieces of evidence, a fragmentary evidentiary record. He seems to apply "preponderance of the evidence" techniques - a rather low standard in current criminal procedure, I gather, but nearly unavoidable in the development of biographical narratives of persons long dead - and rather obscure or entirely negligible over many/most of their years. Nonetheless, he develops marvels of plausible argument to support his narrative. We can hardly demand more.
As far as I can tell Holmes' book prepares us for Jeffrey Meyer's, Samuel Johnson: The Struggle, in which Meyer's focus is Johnson's life-long struggle with his inner demons - which made him the literary Donald Trump of his day - nothing less that a snarling boor-bully, troubled to an extraordinary degree. Indeed, sufficiently troubled to evoke a sense of compassion even in me, who utterly despises bullies of every variety.
Of particular interest to me are the many passages in which Holmes describes the methods he employs to draw conclusions from bits and pieces of evidence, a fragmentary evidentiary record. He seems to apply "preponderance of the evidence" techniques - a rather low standard in current criminal procedure, I gather, but nearly unavoidable in the development of biographical narratives of persons long dead - and rather obscure or entirely negligible over many/most of their years. Nonetheless, he develops marvels of plausible argument to support his narrative. We can hardly demand more.
February 23, 2018
Richard Holmes is one of my very favorite biographers, with his masterful studies of Coleridge and Shelley. This book is a great example of how he pulls it off. This is "a biography of a biography", and in turn, a revealing look at the nature of biography itself in its very inception in modern form with Samuel Johnson's 1740s biography of the now obscure poet Richard Savage. Indeed, Holmes himself inserts his own persona as a biographer into the beginning and end of the book to illuminate the nature of biography as the art of a detective.
Where Holmes excels is at solving the small riddles and mysteries of literary history and his account of the murder trial of Richard Savage is a masterful highlight of the book. Sometimes, I read books on "can't miss" subjects and walk away cold due to the style of the biographer. This particular book is on a subject of passing interest that kept me gripped. All credit to Richard Holmes for his engaging style and revelatory insight into this literary friendship that ended up much more important to the art of biography than previously recognized.
Where Holmes excels is at solving the small riddles and mysteries of literary history and his account of the murder trial of Richard Savage is a masterful highlight of the book. Sometimes, I read books on "can't miss" subjects and walk away cold due to the style of the biographer. This particular book is on a subject of passing interest that kept me gripped. All credit to Richard Holmes for his engaging style and revelatory insight into this literary friendship that ended up much more important to the art of biography than previously recognized.
May 28, 2021
Pretty much only for those devoted to details about Samuel Johnson and how he came to write his Life of Savage, his earliest substantial prose work and a model for future biographies, including the one that Boswell would eventually write about him. Holmes goes into careful detail, explaining what scholars have learned about Savage's weird and controversial life, and comparing that to how Johnson dealt with it, both from personal knowledge of the man and the evidence he had available.
November 4, 2021
If you are interested in Dr Johnson this is a must read. Holmes has investigated Johnson's relationship with Savage with careful research and great sensitivity. Johnson's Life of his friend, though brilliantly written, only tells part of the story. He met Savage before he became successful and to some extent identified with him, which means that his assessment of Savage's character is necessarily partial, despite the appearance of Olympian impartiality.
The surprise for me was that Savage turns out to be a lot more interesting than I had assumed from Johnson's portrait of him. Holmes argues convincingly that he anticipates elements of the Romantic movement in his poetry. Whether Savage was really the son of Earl Rivers we will never know, but he was convinced he was and pursued his self destructive course with a sense of entitlement and resentment that alienated nearly all of his friends - and he had many.
Johnson's unwillingness to undertake serious reseach has left Holmes much new information about Savage. I found this account of the pair fascinating.
The surprise for me was that Savage turns out to be a lot more interesting than I had assumed from Johnson's portrait of him. Holmes argues convincingly that he anticipates elements of the Romantic movement in his poetry. Whether Savage was really the son of Earl Rivers we will never know, but he was convinced he was and pursued his self destructive course with a sense of entitlement and resentment that alienated nearly all of his friends - and he had many.
Johnson's unwillingness to undertake serious reseach has left Holmes much new information about Savage. I found this account of the pair fascinating.
February 28, 2011
Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage demonstrates admirable historical detective work and a convincing conclusion that Johnson begins modern biography with his writing about his friend Richard Savage. However, the book as a whole foregrounds Savage so much and piles on the details of his life and art and experience so high, that Johnson fades into the background. Not entirely and Holmes has good insights into the young Johnson, but they come only after so much intricate detail and conjecture about Savage. Too much of a good thing for me.
May 17, 2016
This was a wonderfully gripping and very funny book - the true story of Dr Johnson as a young man and his friend and mentor, Richard Savage. The author expertly reveals how the rascally Savage entirely pulled the wool over the eyes of the young Johnson and also demonstrates his own literary detective work, unearthing and analysing court records and other sources and bringing the two men and their period vividly back to life.
December 31, 2022
I have always found Johnson’s Life of Savage to be the most fascinating thing he ever wrote. It is deeply charged emotionally, and full of moral force; but there is also something very strange about it. Richard Holmes does a superb job of teasing this strangeness out, using his sources skilfully and creatively to examine the two men’s relationship from a number of different perspectives.
It was, as Holmes says, an “invisible friendship” – not a single authenticated letter exists between the two men nor any first-hand account of Johnson and Savage together. Johnson made the conscious decision to write the Life of Savage with minimal reference to himself, yet his complicated feelings for Savage are obvious.
The central mystery – which so bewildered Boswell – is how someone as judicious as Johnson could have fallen under Savage’s spell, and remained entranced by him until his untimely death. Holmes sheds light on this by stripping away the avuncular Boswellian figure and painting a picture of Johnson as an gawky twentysomething, already deeply learned but also vulnerable and impressionable.
Savage was well known for charming all sorts of people, male and female, young and old, rich and poor. Yet there was more to it – something in Savage’s story touched Johnson deeply; he identified with “the wanderer”, the unappreciated genius, the proto-Romantic outcast poet. In their different ways, both were tortured souls. In a fascinating chapter, Holmes imaginatively reconstructs the two men’s night walks around London from the different accounts we have of them, including those of Boswell, Sir John Hawkins and Joshua Reynolds. He sees these as formative experiences for the provincial Johnson, Savage acting as his guide to London in all its riches, squalor, hypocrisy and political intrigue.
Holmes cleverly reveals all the ways Johnson’s account is partial to Savage, for example when he takes Savage’s side over his benefactors, led by Pope, who raised money for him to support himself less expensively in Wales and whose generosity was thrown back in their faces. Crucially, Johnson also swallows Savage’s version of his parentage without a glimmer of a doubt. It is his conviction in the justice of Savage’s cause that enables his impassioned support of him, in all its emotional intensity and rhetorical brilliance.
Johnson does not entirely refrain from criticising Savage. His judgment is that “the reigning error of his life was, that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not so much a good man as the friend of goodness”. The Life ends with a moralistic and very Johnsonian conclusion that “nothing will supply the Want of Prudence, and that Negiligence and Irregularity, long continued, will make Knowledge useless, Wit ridiculous and Genius Contemptible”. Hard to argue with. Yet Holmes reveals that this was added later – Johnson’s original ending was very different, urging empathy before judgment. Of the two Johnsons – the moralist and the humanist – the latter very much has the upper hand in the Life. While it is impossible, at such a distance, to come to a definitive judgment about the rights and wrongs of Savage’s cause, Johnson’s relationship with him reveals his large-heartedness, his compassion and his capacity for friendship – qualities that, as much as his towering intellect, make him such a compelling figure two-and-a-half centuries later.
It was, as Holmes says, an “invisible friendship” – not a single authenticated letter exists between the two men nor any first-hand account of Johnson and Savage together. Johnson made the conscious decision to write the Life of Savage with minimal reference to himself, yet his complicated feelings for Savage are obvious.
The central mystery – which so bewildered Boswell – is how someone as judicious as Johnson could have fallen under Savage’s spell, and remained entranced by him until his untimely death. Holmes sheds light on this by stripping away the avuncular Boswellian figure and painting a picture of Johnson as an gawky twentysomething, already deeply learned but also vulnerable and impressionable.
Savage was well known for charming all sorts of people, male and female, young and old, rich and poor. Yet there was more to it – something in Savage’s story touched Johnson deeply; he identified with “the wanderer”, the unappreciated genius, the proto-Romantic outcast poet. In their different ways, both were tortured souls. In a fascinating chapter, Holmes imaginatively reconstructs the two men’s night walks around London from the different accounts we have of them, including those of Boswell, Sir John Hawkins and Joshua Reynolds. He sees these as formative experiences for the provincial Johnson, Savage acting as his guide to London in all its riches, squalor, hypocrisy and political intrigue.
Holmes cleverly reveals all the ways Johnson’s account is partial to Savage, for example when he takes Savage’s side over his benefactors, led by Pope, who raised money for him to support himself less expensively in Wales and whose generosity was thrown back in their faces. Crucially, Johnson also swallows Savage’s version of his parentage without a glimmer of a doubt. It is his conviction in the justice of Savage’s cause that enables his impassioned support of him, in all its emotional intensity and rhetorical brilliance.
Johnson does not entirely refrain from criticising Savage. His judgment is that “the reigning error of his life was, that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not so much a good man as the friend of goodness”. The Life ends with a moralistic and very Johnsonian conclusion that “nothing will supply the Want of Prudence, and that Negiligence and Irregularity, long continued, will make Knowledge useless, Wit ridiculous and Genius Contemptible”. Hard to argue with. Yet Holmes reveals that this was added later – Johnson’s original ending was very different, urging empathy before judgment. Of the two Johnsons – the moralist and the humanist – the latter very much has the upper hand in the Life. While it is impossible, at such a distance, to come to a definitive judgment about the rights and wrongs of Savage’s cause, Johnson’s relationship with him reveals his large-heartedness, his compassion and his capacity for friendship – qualities that, as much as his towering intellect, make him such a compelling figure two-and-a-half centuries later.
June 24, 2018
It’s an open secret that the image of Samuel Johnson which has gone down in history is not the one who created most of the great works he was famous for. It wasn’t until after the ‘Rambler’, ‘Rasselas’, ‘Dictionary’ and his poetry that he became the ‘Great Cham of Literature’. During the time Boswell knew him, he was comfortably off with his greatest struggles behind him.
This book tells a story before the safe, rotund old man when Johnson was a skeletal, thuggish looking man carrying a large cudgel with which he single-handedly saw off four attackers. What became grouchiness was once outright aggression; what became fun political knockabout was once dedicated extremism and what became a healthy disdain for the wealthy was once a hatred for all rich folk.
As well as being introduced to this young, aggressive Johnson, we also meet his new bestie, Richard Savage. Having met him in Johnson’s description of his life, this new version of Savage is infinitely more…psychotic. Johnson’s Savage had a legitimate complaint in being denied his birthright as Lady Macclesfield and Earl Rivers bastard son. Richard Holmes’ Savage is most likely deluded in his belief but he certainly never seemed to question it. Where he is pursued by his evil mother in Johnson’s version of the story, he is the pursuer here, Poor Lady Macclesfield is stalked by Savage, who breaks into her house and continues a literature vendetta against her which culminates in the (wonderfully vicious) poem, ‘The Bastard’.
The endearingly childlike Savage of Johnson’s life is replaced by a more knowing, cunning person. When he mets young Samuel, Savage tends to keep him apart from his other lives, hiding his suaver and more successful elements from Samuel’s sympathy. Holmes also reveals that Savage was far more successful person earlier in his life than Johnson ever registers. At one point he had two houses, one in London and one in the Richmond countryside. At this time, he was also part of a circle including Aaron Hill and James Thompson (of Seasons fame).
This period of success was interrupted by his murder trial. The chapter about this sequence of events was the highlight of the book. As well as going through the trial transcripts and literature around the trial with meticulous detail, Holmes also explains in parallel how Johnson presented the trial in his own telling of Savage’s life.
That said, Holmes still manages to create a picture of a fascinating and strangely likeable character - how Savage still remains a captivating person is a mystery to me but I appreciate a charismatic arsehole in life. It is helped that I love his poetry, strange an vigorous with an almost romantic mode of drama and self pity combines with an Augustan mode of expression
This isn’t a long book but it is a thoroughly engaging one. Richard Holmes evokes a radically different version of Johnson and describes a fascinating portrait of an infuriating and enticing man in Savage. Their friendship feels real, their world disturbingly grimy and their story an important one.
Highly recommended.
This book tells a story before the safe, rotund old man when Johnson was a skeletal, thuggish looking man carrying a large cudgel with which he single-handedly saw off four attackers. What became grouchiness was once outright aggression; what became fun political knockabout was once dedicated extremism and what became a healthy disdain for the wealthy was once a hatred for all rich folk.
As well as being introduced to this young, aggressive Johnson, we also meet his new bestie, Richard Savage. Having met him in Johnson’s description of his life, this new version of Savage is infinitely more…psychotic. Johnson’s Savage had a legitimate complaint in being denied his birthright as Lady Macclesfield and Earl Rivers bastard son. Richard Holmes’ Savage is most likely deluded in his belief but he certainly never seemed to question it. Where he is pursued by his evil mother in Johnson’s version of the story, he is the pursuer here, Poor Lady Macclesfield is stalked by Savage, who breaks into her house and continues a literature vendetta against her which culminates in the (wonderfully vicious) poem, ‘The Bastard’.
The endearingly childlike Savage of Johnson’s life is replaced by a more knowing, cunning person. When he mets young Samuel, Savage tends to keep him apart from his other lives, hiding his suaver and more successful elements from Samuel’s sympathy. Holmes also reveals that Savage was far more successful person earlier in his life than Johnson ever registers. At one point he had two houses, one in London and one in the Richmond countryside. At this time, he was also part of a circle including Aaron Hill and James Thompson (of Seasons fame).
This period of success was interrupted by his murder trial. The chapter about this sequence of events was the highlight of the book. As well as going through the trial transcripts and literature around the trial with meticulous detail, Holmes also explains in parallel how Johnson presented the trial in his own telling of Savage’s life.
That said, Holmes still manages to create a picture of a fascinating and strangely likeable character - how Savage still remains a captivating person is a mystery to me but I appreciate a charismatic arsehole in life. It is helped that I love his poetry, strange an vigorous with an almost romantic mode of drama and self pity combines with an Augustan mode of expression
This isn’t a long book but it is a thoroughly engaging one. Richard Holmes evokes a radically different version of Johnson and describes a fascinating portrait of an infuriating and enticing man in Savage. Their friendship feels real, their world disturbingly grimy and their story an important one.
Highly recommended.
September 16, 2021
This is essentially a portrait of Richard Savage, a charismatic and poetic sociopath who was befriended by a young and naive Samuel Johnson, who wrote a rather positive biography of Savage after being taken in at length by him. It is from that biography and numerous other sources that the author examines the man and the odd friendship, such as it was.
If you have not had the experience of knowing a sociopath, then this will inform you. They say whatever is convenient to their purpose irrespective of the truth, and they immediately believe themselves. The truth is only something to be taken into account so as to be mobilized when possible and otherwise cunningly worked around. If you fulfill a need, then you are a valued friend. If you come into their sights and fail to fulfill their perceived need, then you have a dangerous, rabid, and enduring enemy. They are full of assorted grievances, all considered completely undeserved. They assume they are smarter than anyone else. They will believe what you declare if it is to their advantage and libel you if it is not. They have a wonderful knack of getting other people's money in return for playing victim, and according flattery, interesting stories, and lightly conveyed, or malignant and public threats.
That said, the book is not a breezy read.
If you have not had the experience of knowing a sociopath, then this will inform you. They say whatever is convenient to their purpose irrespective of the truth, and they immediately believe themselves. The truth is only something to be taken into account so as to be mobilized when possible and otherwise cunningly worked around. If you fulfill a need, then you are a valued friend. If you come into their sights and fail to fulfill their perceived need, then you have a dangerous, rabid, and enduring enemy. They are full of assorted grievances, all considered completely undeserved. They assume they are smarter than anyone else. They will believe what you declare if it is to their advantage and libel you if it is not. They have a wonderful knack of getting other people's money in return for playing victim, and according flattery, interesting stories, and lightly conveyed, or malignant and public threats.
That said, the book is not a breezy read.
November 5, 2019
Based on the scholarship and the writing, I thought we might have a four-star book here. Alas, not for me. I read every word but couldn’t get past the notions (1) I really didn’t care for or about the poet Richard Savage, (2) the book did not have enough about Johnson and (3) the author was working over-hard to sell concepts based on very little evidence. The book abounds in expressions like “probably” and “seems to be” and “appears to” — in other words, conjecture. Clearly the author is doing his best to create a book out of scant hard evidence — but I tired of it.
What we have here is an attempt to paint a picture of Johnson’s effort to create a new sort of biography. To some extent the author succeeds. But I just didn’t enjoy the process much.
The last section, “Charon,” would be worthwhile for the reader to visit FIRST — it will be useful in understanding the author’s motivation.
Not a keeper.
What we have here is an attempt to paint a picture of Johnson’s effort to create a new sort of biography. To some extent the author succeeds. But I just didn’t enjoy the process much.
The last section, “Charon,” would be worthwhile for the reader to visit FIRST — it will be useful in understanding the author’s motivation.
Not a keeper.
February 11, 2018
While this book is a biography of the relationship between Dr Johnson and (to me anyway) little-known poet Richard Savage, it's also a biography of biographies themselves and how filtering the facts of someone's life through an author can mean they are distorted. I found this heavy going at times, but am glad that I persisted as I think it will lead to me looking at future biographies I read with a more judgemental eye.
February 10, 2019
Fascinating peek into the early to mid 18th cent. literary life of London. Humanizes Dr. Johnson by showing his feet of clay when it came to writing his very sympathetic Life of Savage, even though Savage himself was a hard to like possible murderer, as well as a liar and a ne'er do well. Not a very good poet, either.
July 3, 2018
One of the most entertaining and accessible books about Samuel Johnson, which sees him through the prism of his strange friendship with the poet and reprobate Richard Savage. Insightful about what might be called Johnson's lost years, it's a biography with a true poetry in its approach.
August 31, 2025
A brilliant book but only for those interested in Dr Johnson and the eighteenth century.It reads easily and is absorbing even to me,one who knows little about those times.I read this in homage to my father,a largely uneducated factory worker who somehow found Dr Johnson an intriguing figure.
November 30, 2019
Read this about a month ago. Not a bad book at all but seemed like the author was trying to make a lot out of a small but important piece of Samuel Johnsons history
January 22, 2021
More Johnson and less Savage would have suited me fine
June 10, 2016
What a book. Rarely is a work this scholarly such a pleasure to read. I have read two of Holmes's other books, "The Age of Wonder" and "Falling Upwards," but neither quite prepared me for this one, which is a true masterpiece of biography.
The book originates in 1744, when Samuel Johnson published his brilliant "The Life of Mr Richard Savage." Richard Savage was a celebrity in his own day, a poet, a womaniser, a drunk and a murderer, who flashed through eighteenth century London like a thunderbolt. He experienced towering highs of fame and wealth, and pitiful lows of degradation and poverty. Johnson's biography of him is a wonderful book.
And yet, points out Holmes, it is a deeply strange and partial book. How could the young Johnson be so enamoured of a rakish murderer? How well did he know this Mr Richard Savage, with whom he prowled the dark streets of London for two years in the 1730s? Who was this young Johnson anyway? These are the questions Holmes sets out to answer, and he does so with characteristic energy and grace. The book not only gives a vivid portrait of the young Johnson and his older friend Savage, but it is full of pungent reflections on the art of biography, and the way Johnson's biographers have struggled to understand the great man before he was a celebrity, and before he met James Boswell.
A wonderful book. 5/5
The book originates in 1744, when Samuel Johnson published his brilliant "The Life of Mr Richard Savage." Richard Savage was a celebrity in his own day, a poet, a womaniser, a drunk and a murderer, who flashed through eighteenth century London like a thunderbolt. He experienced towering highs of fame and wealth, and pitiful lows of degradation and poverty. Johnson's biography of him is a wonderful book.
And yet, points out Holmes, it is a deeply strange and partial book. How could the young Johnson be so enamoured of a rakish murderer? How well did he know this Mr Richard Savage, with whom he prowled the dark streets of London for two years in the 1730s? Who was this young Johnson anyway? These are the questions Holmes sets out to answer, and he does so with characteristic energy and grace. The book not only gives a vivid portrait of the young Johnson and his older friend Savage, but it is full of pungent reflections on the art of biography, and the way Johnson's biographers have struggled to understand the great man before he was a celebrity, and before he met James Boswell.
A wonderful book. 5/5
April 10, 2015
i really like how richard holmes lets reader see into his process as a biographer/researcher Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer though perhaps some will be irritated at his injection into "the truth", "history" etc.
savage was a wild poet and oppositionist and partyer in 1730-40's london, and johnson met him, johnson himself just getting to town and wanting to be a poet, writer. so the poor grotesque young johnson meets the poor grotesque old savage. biography eventually ensues.
holmes has now joined them, walking the city all night because of poverty, perverseness, art. we get another fun theoretical factual biography out of the 3-way. if you are at all interested in 18th cent london/england art, architecture, social, economic poetical history and the strange history of mr. savage, this is a great read.
savage was a wild poet and oppositionist and partyer in 1730-40's london, and johnson met him, johnson himself just getting to town and wanting to be a poet, writer. so the poor grotesque young johnson meets the poor grotesque old savage. biography eventually ensues.
holmes has now joined them, walking the city all night because of poverty, perverseness, art. we get another fun theoretical factual biography out of the 3-way. if you are at all interested in 18th cent london/england art, architecture, social, economic poetical history and the strange history of mr. savage, this is a great read.
July 1, 2009
Random pick at the library; I've never read Johnson or Boswell's Johnson etc. So far... incredibly well done. Sounds a little like an English Lit text, and it is I guess -- the early 18th c. birth of modern biography. But at least the first 1/3 is a gripping story about the friendship between the down-and-out ex-con/poet laureate/political dissenter (Savage) and the down-on-his-luck young schoolmaster/writer (Johnson) -- and the aftermath of the friendship.
November 21, 2015
Samuel Johnson wrote a biography of poet Richard Savage, portraying him as a tragic genius. Richard Holmes looks at Savage's life and that of young Samuel Johnson, the relationship between them and the writing of biography. It all makes for a fascinating book. Savage was a colourful character, although not always an honest one about himself, and Johnson when young was very different from the character described by Boswell some thirty years later.
December 31, 2015
not bad
March 3, 2016
The Great Cham beguiled by a fascinating rogue
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September 14, 2009Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage (Vintage) by Richard Holmes (1996)
Currently reading
July 20, 2017this is what i am gonna translate for my graduation paper, i just want a txt vesion. -_-
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