Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age

Leo Damrosch

3.91 · Rating details · 891 ratings · 184 reviews

The story of the group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavern

Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 • A Kirkus Best Book of 2019

“Damrosch brings the Club’s redoubtable personalities—the brilliant minds, the jousting wits, the ten ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 488 pages

Published March 26th 2019 by Yale University Press

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Club, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about The Club

Lists with This Book

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2019

100 books — 44 voters

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr

History Published in Year: 2019

371 books — 99 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.91 ·

Rating details

· 891 ratings · 184 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age

Jun 22, 2020 Darwin8u rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, biography, british, nonfiction, 2020

"Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both."
-- Samuel Johnson to James Boswell

description

The Club is a frame biography. But it is certainly more than its parts. At its core, Damrosch nails together small biographies of Johnson, Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbons, and other minor characters/members of "the Club." But this book goes beyond this. It is also a history of the age, using the members of the club as a lens into England in the mi ...more

flag 47 likes · Like · see review

Jul 04, 2020 Warwick rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: georgian-regency, history, england, london

Reading about the mid-to-late eighteenth century often makes me think of Duff Cooper's comment, that the wit and conversations then in evidence were such as ‘had never, perhaps, been heard since certain voices in Athens fell silent two thousand years before’. Cooper was talking about Paris, but the line is arguably even more applicable to London, where Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke (respectively the world's greatest lexicographer, b Reading about the mid-to-late eighteenth century often makes me think of Duff Cooper's comment, that the wit and conversations then in evidence were such as ‘had never, perhaps, been heard since certain voices in Athens fell silent two thousand years before’. Cooper was talking about Paris, but the line is arguably even more applicable to London, where Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke (respectively the world's greatest lexicographer, biographer, historian, actor, painter and orator) would regularly get together in coffee-houses to drink prodigious amounts of alcohol and shoot the shit in immaculately weighted epigrams.

This book is an entertaining introduction to the period and the milieu; what it isn't, despite the title, is a history of the famous Literary Club itself. Positive reviews say that Damrosch ‘goes beyond’ just the Club, but this is a bit like saying that Columbus went beyond India by landing in the Bahamas instead. Yes, he goes beyond it, but he doesn't really go to it. There were a few club members I was interested to find out more about – like the playwright George Colman (mentioned once in passing) or the Irish separatist Lord Charlemont (not mentioned at all). There is no new research here on the Club. What there is, essentially, is a narrative retelling of Boswell's journals and his Life of Johnson, supplemented with a few short, chapter-length biographies of key associated names (Garrick, Burke, Adam Smith etc.) and relevant historical themes (a chapter on empire; a chapter on religious tension).

If that's what you're looking for, this does the job extremely well. Damrosch is particularly good on unpicking those instances where an anecdote in the Life has been sanitised or altered from the way it was originally recorded in Boswell's journals. On these occasions (and there are many), he does a good job of making you feel that you're being shown behind the curtain. And he does nail the essential contrasts – so catalytic for both men – between Boswell and Johnson:

Boswell was a romantic who fantasized about feudal affection between lords and their dependents, Johnson was a hardheaded pragmatist. Johnson insisted on reason and self-control, Boswell revelled in emotional “sensibility” and seized gratifications whenever he could. Johnson aspired to what he called “the grandeur of generality” and Boswell to specificity and piquant details. Johnson crafted language in the carefully assembled building blocks of the periodic style, Boswell's style was conversational and free.

On the controversies around the French Revolution, Damrosch, looking at Burke and his allies, points out:

One can't help reflecting on how nakedly all of these people declared a position which privileged people and their political allies today are careful to disguise.

Which is a good point, though he doesn't take it any further, and in general presents Burke as brilliantly foresighted. He was, but he was also quite reactionary. In fact, all of the club members were firmly conservative in their opinions (with the exception of Gibbon on religion). Johnson's response to the marriage of Hester Thrale to Gabriel Piozzi is a particularly upsetting example – this marriage feels like such a totemic moment of the period to me, just because it seems to crystallise so much about class, religion, gender, and beyond that just the incomprehensibility of people's reactions in a different age. (Hester was a smart and spiky Welshwoman who could hold her own with any of the male wits of the day; she married an Italian musician, and – because he was Catholic and foreign, and because she married him out of physical attraction – was shunned by all her friends and family for it. Johnson and Fanny Burney both told her, having been friends for years, that they would no longer speak to her.)

As an American, Damrosch makes a few slightly curious asides about how themes of the day relate to the American Founders, and occasionally the British geopolitical context gets the better of him – he refers to Johnson's trip to France as the only time he ever left England, despite writing at length about his journeys to Scotland and Wales. There are also a few minor factual slips, such as when he has the Hastings trial end four years early in 1791.

But in general this is a rich and rewarding distillation of the available primary sources. There is no new information here and no new arguments, but as an introduction to the people and the time, it's one of the best books you could read. ...more

flag 38 likes · Like · see review

Sep 20, 2019 Faith rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio, overdrive, reviewed, netgalley

“They were great talkers because they knew and did so much, and many of them rose to accomplishments of the highest order. No fewer than seven — Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Gibbon, Adam Smith, and Boswell — made up a constellation of talent that has rarely if ever been equaled.” The Club was started in 1764 by the painter Joshua Reynolds and the writer Samuel Johnson. Membership was strictly limited. Some, but not all, of the men were (or became) famous. They were required to be intellige ...more

flag 35 likes · Like · see review

Sep 08, 2019 W.D. Clarke rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019, 18c

Really, really enjoyed Professor Damrosch's tour and company. As a now-budding 18C dilletante, I say that this is the perfect book to accompany any reading of Boswell's justly celebrated The Life of Samuel Johnson.

What it isn't, though, is a thoroughly rigorous or exhaustive exhuming of the careers of the other club members. Think of this , rather, as a personable, winning, urbane and wise set of Very Short Introductions to Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, Smith and others, energetic little electrons o ...more

flag 25 likes · Like · see review

Apr 29, 2019 Marks54 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a history of one of the original London clubs that developed as a place where the emerging bourgeois professional and literary class of London could gather for food, drink, fellowship, and talking - lots of talking. The club members were self-selected and it was hard to join. Members included Joshua Reynolds, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, and others, eventually including James Boswell, who wrote the great biography of Johnson. The “Club” began in This is a history of one of the original London clubs that developed as a place where the emerging bourgeois professional and literary class of London could gather for food, drink, fellowship, and talking - lots of talking. The club members were self-selected and it was hard to join. Members included Joshua Reynolds, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, and others, eventually including James Boswell, who wrote the great biography of Johnson. The “Club” began in 1763 and continued into the 20th century as the London Literary Society. One gets a good sense of what discussions at the club were like due to some example provided by the copious note taking of Boswell. The heart of the story however, is twofold. First, it is the story of Johnson and Boswell, which is worthwhile on its own - although readers who have not done so should read Boswell’s bio of Johnson. The second focus of the book is to provide briefer lives of the most noteworthy of the initial group members, along with some summaries of their critical works.

So the idea is that by looking at the life and works of the key members of the club, one gets a better picture of the emerging intellectual life of London in the Georgian Era. In this sense, the book is similar to “The Metaphysical Club” by Louis Menand (2001) which provided a group biography of a discussion group after the Civil War ;;that included Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William James, and Charles Pierce, among others. Menand’s book was wonderful and won a Pulitzer. Damrosch’s book is also superb and he has an astonishing cast of characters with which to work. The club as a vehicle for discussing all the participants works sufficiently to tell a good story. The major players are outstanding. In addition, Damrosch also works in a number of women associated with club members who also contributed to this rich intellectual life, although the club never admitted women. Johnson and Boswell are still the stars of this show, but the supporting cast is worthwhile. The chapters on David Garrick and the London Theatre scene are especially good. ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Oct 05, 2020 Kevin Lopez rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-autobiography-memoir, history

“ Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. ”
-Dr. Samuel Johnson

“ Unlike some later clubs, it had no premises of its own, but met in an ordinary London pub. The members included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith—arguably the greatest British critic, biographer, political philosopher, historian, and economist of all time. ”
-Leo Damrosch, The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age

The decades-long friendship between Dr. ...more

flag 12 likes · Like · see review

Feb 16, 2019 Fern Adams rated it really liked it

The Club was a group of polymaths who met in an inn once a week in the second half of the 1700s. Made up of actors, artists, intellectuals and writers, many of the members were people who remain well known to this day; Johnson, Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith amongst others. I was expecting this book to be about the meetings themselves and what they entailed and discussed during these however rather it was a book of biographies of the members. Damrosch tak The Club was a group of polymaths who met in an inn once a week in the second half of the 1700s. Made up of actors, artists, intellectuals and writers, many of the members were people who remain well known to this day; Johnson, Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith amongst others. I was expecting this book to be about the meetings themselves and what they entailed and discussed during these however rather it was a book of biographies of the members. Damrosch takes each club member and provides information on their lives, work and idiosyncrasies as well as giving the reader information on the social, cultural and political history of the time. The book uses a range of sources including the club members journals, work, letters, quotes and Johnson’s own definitions of words within the dictionary he compiled. Damrosch has researched well and places the sources, events and people themselves into context for the time thus providing an extra layer that biographies often miss out and lead to the misinterpretation of information. Furthermore the paintings, drawings and cartoons that are peppered throughout the book really help to give the reader a mental picture of both the club members and the historical setting.

I found this a fascinating read. Damrosch is clearly a skilled biographer. He is able to present the information in a very readable and clear manner and while the book is fairly long it does not read so. While I would have preferred a bit more balance between the members of the club (there is a large focus on Johnson and Boswell) and mentions of Rousseau and Voltaire who were not part of the club take up far more page space than many of the members this nevertheless was incredibly insightful. A perfect read for people who have knowledge of the club members and want to find out more about them or equally know very little but would like to begin researching. A book I am sure I will reread.

Thank you to Net Galley and Yale University Press for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Mar 23, 2019 Peter Tillman rated it liked it

Shelves: history, did-not-finish, award-win-nom, lost-interest, hist-fiction, bios-memoirs, on-reserve, stalled, at-bg-pa

While there is good stuff here, my interest flagged about halfway in. It's a long time ago, and TMI about characters I don't care much about. The book is due back, and I think I'm done.

Joseph Epsein's rave review: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-club... [paywalled. Ask if you would like a copy].

"What historical era produced the greatest aggregate of human intelligence? Fifth century B.C. Greece provided Socrates and Plato, Pericles and Phidias. In 18th-century France there were the philosophes, ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Jun 18, 2019 Andy Klein rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, biography, history

As an avid Johnsonian, I was amused by the book but learned very little. As has been remarked by others, the title is misnamed. The book focused entirely on the relationship between Boswell and Johnson, touching on some of the early members of Johnson’s conversational club here and there. The book had almost nothing to do with the club itself. While I know that the events of club meetings only exist within Boswell’s journals and his Life of Johnson, the author should have named the book somethin As an avid Johnsonian, I was amused by the book but learned very little. As has been remarked by others, the title is misnamed. The book focused entirely on the relationship between Boswell and Johnson, touching on some of the early members of Johnson’s conversational club here and there. The book had almost nothing to do with the club itself. While I know that the events of club meetings only exist within Boswell’s journals and his Life of Johnson, the author should have named the book something like Boswell and Johnson, an Unlikely Friendship. The book did remind me how misunderstood Samuel Johnson is. While he was guilty of much verbal condescension and, sometimes, cruelty, at bottom he was a man with a big heart who was largely beloved by the victims of his barbs. He was one of the foremost social commentators with his Rambler essays, the greatest lexicographer until James Murray and Bryan Garner, and a towering intellect. His single-handed composition of the first real dictionary of the English language with 40,000 entries and ten times that many representative quotations was perhaps the greatest act of non-scientific scholarship ever completed by a single person. Boswell, on the other hand, was a self-important, self-absorbed, narcissistic, arrogant, drunken, whore-mongering misogynist who accomplished only a single thing of note in his life, recording the words of Samuel Johnson and reproducing them in his biography. Boswell liked to pretend he was a gentleman, but his treatment of all women, including his wife, was unforgivable. In the end, he died the penniless loser that he was. I am, of course, grossly understating the significance and worth of Boswell's Johnson--one of the greatest biographies ever written and that could only have been written by an obsessed sycophant like Boswell, who took down seemingly every word uttered by the other during their 20+ year friendship. But that achievement in no way changes my opinion of its author. All this said, does anyone doubt that Donald Trump would love to have his own Boswell?

Having a chance to ruminate a bit more on Boswell, I was too harsh. Yes, he was all those things. But those things were caused by a combination of his terrible, arrogant father, Alexander, and his mental illnesses--almost certainly profound depression and bipolar syndrome. Of course Boswell struggled. Who among us with his baggage, and no modern treatment, would not. But that does not excuse his treatment of others, particularly women. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 25, 2019 Alan rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Flaneurs, raconteurs and litterateurs

Recommended to Alan by: Bronwen

Following Leo Damrosch's lead, I'm going to quote liberally from the subjects of The Club in this review—for, although his own prose is certainly lively and accessible, the real stars are the individuals Damrosch studies, like Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith and others, who began meeting and exchanging ideas in London's Turk's Head Tavern, back in 1764.

Although a (much-changed) version of the Club exists even in the present day, The Club focuses on its firs ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 29, 2020 Bruce Katz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-history-crit, history

A hundred or so years ago, when I was in grad school, I took a course on seventeenth century literature, the so-called Age of Johnson. I found the reading onerous, but the professor, Paul Fussell, was one of the most renowned scholars of the period so I persisted. It didn't hurt that Fussell was a very smart, very entertaining instructor. Looking back I'd have to say that he planted the seeds of a curiosity about that era that persisted over the years. Which is what prompted me to read this book ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2021 Deanna rated it really liked it

The club is a centering device for this book but not a feature--a disappointment several have mentioned. I hoped for more insight into how membership in the club and the relationships and creative interactions among members impacted their creative trajectories and achievements. That's still a book I’d like to read.

Despite what if isn't, what it is is still a worthy read, though if you’ve read Boswell you're familiar with a good deal of what's covered here.
...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Feb 05, 2019 Alvaro de Menard rated it liked it

There's not much to say about the titular Club, certainly not enough to fill 400 pages. Damrosch's strategy is to write about the lives of its members, and the general milieu they lived in. So, rather than a history of the club this book is mostly a series of independent biographies.

Adam Smith gets one chapter (8 pages!), Joshua Reynolds gets one chapter, Edmund Burke gets one chapter, and so on. Johnson and Boswell get a few each, and some about the two of them together.

There are two problems w ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 03, 2019 Brian Willis rated it it was amazing

This book is a vital survey of the intellectual and literary circle of luminaries who came to intersect their interests in an informal meeting called "the Club" at a local tavern called the Mitre. Ostensibly, it also spotlights many of the socio-cultural personas of the late 18th century in Britain: Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Joshua Reynolds, and Edward Gibbon.

Alongside his previous 2 books, a biography of Jonathan Swift and an artistic biography of W ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 05, 2019 Caroline Breashears added it

I am currently reading this book, which has a fantastic focus: the famous London club featuring Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Topham Beauclerck, Adam Smith, and other luminaries. Damrosch is really nailing it with Johnson and Boswell, though he has an unfortunate tendency to prefer raunchy anecdotes. His chapter on Garrick is also solid.

His account of Adam Smith, however, is superficial and biased. He relies, for instance, on Duncan Foley (of _Adam's Fallacy_) rathe ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 23, 2019 Jeff Keehr rated it liked it

This is largely a rehash of Boswell's The Life of Johnson with additional biographical details on each of the major members of the Literary Club that Johnson helped to found. It contains some interesting theories on the real nature of Johnson's relationship with Hester Thrale. It includes a lot of the stupid things that Boswell did and said during his lifetime, most of which we can do without. Boswell was an ass but he was also the artist who left us with a masterpiece. I like how William Gaddis ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 12, 2019 Abigail Bok rated it really liked it

“The Club” was an informal gathering of the brilliant and the witty, founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Johnson in 1764. A select group of men would gather in a pub once a week for an evening of liquid indulgence and conversation, focused on the debate of large ideas.

Leo Damrosch’s book attempts to capture the group and the cultural and historical context that produced it. This is probably an impossible undertaking, and that it doesn’t entirely succeed is forgivable. The cover blurb descr “The Club” was an informal gathering of the brilliant and the witty, founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Johnson in 1764. A select group of men would gather in a pub once a week for an evening of liquid indulgence and conversation, focused on the debate of large ideas.

Leo Damrosch’s book attempts to capture the group and the cultural and historical context that produced it. This is probably an impossible undertaking, and that it doesn’t entirely succeed is forgivable. The cover blurb describes Damrosch’s account as “brilliantly animated,” but to me it felt episodic, replete with anecdotes as lively as the protagonists but failing to create a coherent whole. It is also unfortunate that some of the protagonists were so rife with flaws and vices that reading about them was sometimes distasteful. In particular Johnson’s amanuensis and biographer James Boswell, who probably gets more page space than anyone else including Johnson himself, often made me want to set down the book and take a shower.

I came to this book desiring two things, one of them personal, the other a reasonable expectation for any reader. My personal wish was to learn more about Charles Burney, a member of the Club, in the context of his public life (having read much about his family life as the father of Fanny Burney), and here I found little to grab on to. The other expectation I formed of the book was that it would provide a global sense of the culture of London in the late eighteenth century, a picture of the currents of thought prevailing in that intellectually vigorous age. And here is where I was most disappointed: it seemed to me that the author, wading through a wealth of colorful detail, was unable to stand back often enough to offer a broad perspective. He reported insightful remarks in the course of detailing conversations among the Club members, but often failed to follow them up with context. The extent of his erudition makes me believe him capable of more than he provided.

The anecdotes are fascinating and the reader comes away with a clear sense of the texture of the lives of a loose group of extraordinary men. But I had larger ambitions for the work than were realized. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 29, 2020 Sue rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The best (male) minds of late 18th-century England belonged to a casual club that met once a week at the Turk’s Head Tavern for food, drink, and conversation. The Club is the loose alignment that gives focus to this entertaining book, which opens a window to the era by way of several biographies.

A sentence from the prologue sums them up:

The members included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith—arguably the greatest British critic, biographer, political phil

The members included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith—arguably the greatest British critic, biographer, political philosopher, historian, and economist of all time. Others were equally famous at the time: the painter Joshua Reynolds; the playwrights Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith; and David Garrick, the greatest actor of the century.

In several instances, the men made singular contributions in their work. Johnson’s biographer Boswell, for example, was the first to write a biography which included actual conversations, with scenes written to evoke a mood. No one had thought to do that. Samuel Johnson wrote a dictionary which traced the history of a word, citing earlier and current usages; it’s an approach that prevails to this day. Edward Gibbon’s A History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire offered a new way of looking at history, one which engaged readers in the frequently ambiguous task of assessing past times. Edmund Burke’s political wisdom, often delivered in parliamentary oratory, continues to inspire political thinkers. Adam Smith launched the study of economics through The Wealth of Nations. Even the actor Garrick introduced realistic acting, a contrast to the prior style of declamation.

Whew. I’m convinced. These men mattered, then and now.

What made the book so engaging was the forward motion of the narrative as we became acquainted with first one, then another. Much of the detail was retrieved from the journals of Boswell. Without Johnson, Boswell would have had no story, but his remarkable skill in recall was amazing, and he confesses his debauchery as well as Johnson’s fabulous pronouncements. A substantial section of The Club focused on these two fascinating characters, in large part because we know so much more about the details of their lives.

The others do matter. They are especially interesting in this era of English colonial power. Burke was an ally for the American colonists as well as those under British rule in India. Gibbon became fascinated with Rome, and its decline, in part because of what he was seeing in England and America; the common topic is empire. Adam Smith accurately prophesied the rise of industrial England in the next century.

Damrosch did not limit his attention to this A list. Johnson had numerous women in his circle. His bouts with depression and his tics made him occasionally a peculiar character, and several women cared for and supported him. An intellectual group, they were drawn to his brilliant mind. Hester Thrale and her husband invited him to live with them, and they regularly maintained a spot for him in their expansive household. Hester herself was a writer, even while producing a baby just about every year. It was all possible because of the multitude of servants and cooks and nannies who did all the work.

Damrosch observed the silent presence of servants, and this is the quietly intrusive fact of economic life. Even the poorest of the men were freed from ordinary tasks. Edmund Gibbon, who lived out much of his life in Lausanne, Switzerland, led a schedule described as a day of research and writing, followed by an evening spent with friends. No cooking, cleaning, or checking on the credit card.

As an American, I am inclined to see the late 18th century in terms of our country’s rebellion and subsequent establishment of a separate nation. It was fascinating to think of those events against the highly developed culture and nuanced views from the mother country. The key figures all had opinions about empire and about colonizing other lands. This is one topic on which there was wide disagreement among these sharp minds. The other was the Christian religion.

It’s all enormously engaging, a wonderful amalgam of traditional historical observation, anecdotes, and stories.

The narrator for the audio version, Simon Vance, is excellent. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 11, 2021 Sherwood Smith added it

Shelves: biography, history-early-modern, history-18th-c, history

In spite of the title, this is really a series of short biographies, with an emphasis on Boswell and Johnson. So readers looking for a history of this club, or others of the period, would do better elsewhere.

But for an introduction to the lives of some of the members (specifically those around Johnson and Boswell) this is engagingly readable, with a lot of pictures. The main thrust is the “good parts” version of Boswell's journals, swapped off with his Life of Johnson. What detective work there ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 18, 2020 Noah Goats rated it it was amazing

The Club is a sort of group biography about some of the greatest artists and intellectuals of 18th century Britain. It focuses in particular on Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, but also gets into the interesting lives of David Garrick (the greatest actor of his day), Edward Gibbon, Joshua Reynolds, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and others. These men were (mostly) friends of Johnson’s and they were all members of the same club.

The Club covers so much territory that it can’t do its ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Sep 09, 2020 Barry rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir, history

This book examines life in 18th century London focusing on the lives of the members of “The Club.” This included some the most accomplished and famous men of the time — the preeminent authors, thinkers, playwrights, and artists in Britain. Based on the premise, it seems like a book that I would love. I’m not sure why I didn’t enjoy it more. Perhaps it’s more worthwhile to read Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, and Edward Gibbon than it is to read about them.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

May 28, 2019 William Dury rated it liked it

I read Boswell many years ago. “The Life” is a truly great book, one of those foundation of civilization things. “The Club” gives insight into the other members of The Club, most prominently Reynolds, Burke, Gibbon and Smith. Not to be suspicious but they all conform neatly to type. Burke a bit slick, Reynolds smarmy and charming, Smith dull and Gibbon the impossibly good writer endearingly besotted by his work. Boswell is presented as such a dim witted drunken rake that one wonders how he wrote ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 10, 2020 Peter rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, biography

The Club (2019) is Leo Damrosch's entertaining history of the London Literary Club, an assemblage of major 18th century figures in English arts that met weekly at London's Turk's Head Tavern. A Harvard professor, Demrosch is the perfect interpreter of that diverse group and of its consequences. This is a delightful history of the literary scene in 18th century England, beautifully told in both words and paintings from the time, each with a commentary that brings them to life and sets their conne ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2020 TheBookWarren rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ancient-modern-history, top-shelf-reads, non-fiction, memoir-biography, fav-authors

Sometimes when reading nonfiction, one can begin to feel the moment where as the reader, it all becomes a little dull. Not through the subject or even any real fault of the author at all, but because it’s the nature of many nonfiction reads that at some point you must hit “reset” & switch to fiction or have a break for a day or so..

Leo Damrosch’s “The Club” - Is absolutely NOT one of these. This absolute gem of a novel is instantly accessible, engaging & oddly compelling, given that it is not ne ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2019 Brian rated it it was amazing

In the second half of the eighteenth century a remarkable group of men met weekly in the Turk’s Head Tavern in London. Known simply as The Club, the group included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon.

This book traces the fortunes of those men as well as some of the talented women who were their friends and supporters like the writers Fanny Burney, Hannah Moore, and Charlotte Lennox, and the woman ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 11, 2020 Peter rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-world

The Shakespearean actor Garrick, the portrait artist Reynolds, the opposition politician Burke and other well-known members of a group of London’s most famous second-class, yet accomplished, men and women in the middle of the 18th century are featured in this series of linked biographical and social sketches. James Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson dominate, with Boswell’s odd behavior and personality featuring perhaps a bit too prominently. Much like Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, Damrosch ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 28, 2019 Michael G rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, history

I was sorry this book ended, along with the rich lives that are explored. With much lively human detail, the Club members’ times, friends, personalities, features and foibles are convincingly presented, so that you feel you know them. There is no perfection in these widely different men (and women friends, too), but then greatness is not perfection. If one has read “The Life of Samuel Johnson,” this book completes the canvas, or one could read this and still learn much about Johnson and all his ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 01, 2019 Angie Boyter rated it liked it

Shelves: netgalley

An intellectual history of the late eighteenth century through the lives of some remarkable men

Eighteenth-century England was a lively place! Captain Cook was exploring the South Seas. Playwrights like Richard Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith were writing plays we still enjoy, and David Garrick was acting in them. Adam Smith was inventing modern economics. And so on. Despite the breadth of the innovation, exploration, and accomplishments in that era, though, the cast of characters who played major An intellectual history of the late eighteenth century through the lives of some remarkable men

Eighteenth-century England was a lively place! Captain Cook was exploring the South Seas. Playwrights like Richard Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith were writing plays we still enjoy, and David Garrick was acting in them. Adam Smith was inventing modern economics. And so on. Despite the breadth of the innovation, exploration, and accomplishments in that era, though, the cast of characters who played major roles all seemed to know one another! The Club focuses on one small remarkable group of men who gathered for camaraderie and stimulating conversation and uses their lives to open the door onto the big picture of the intellectual life of the period. It is amazing how such a small group could have so much influence in their own time and later. These are practically all names we remember: Samuel Johnson for his dictionary and literary criticism, James Boswell for biography, Edmund Burke for his oratory, Edward Gibbon for his history, Adam Smith for economics, Sir Joshua Reynolds for painting, David Garrick for acting, and even Joseph Banks, who traveled with Captain Cook and later was president of the Royal Society.
Damrosch’s primary emphasis is on Johnson and Boswell, and he devotes about a third of the book to a description of their lives before the Club is formed. The other members each get a chapter, and even in those chapters there is a lot of description of their interaction with Boswell and Johnson. The activities of the Club itself take up only a fairly small part of the book. No matter who or what the subject is at any time, though, Damrosch gives the bigger picture as well, on subjects like religious controversy, matters of class, and similar social issues. There are a lot of a lot of interesting detours. For example, the chapter on Johnson’s early career includes a section on his friendship with several women writers, Elizabeth Carter, whose translation of Epictetus was still being reprinted as late as 1910, and Charlotte Lennox, whose novel The Female Quixote may have been Jane Austen’s inspiration for Northanger Abbey (Austen acknowledged that she loved the book.). There is interesting history of the emergence of the modern magazine during this period and the difficulty of making a living as a writer (Some things never change.).
The Club provides a vivid narrative picture, so it is only fitting that it should include illustrations provided by the art of the day. Damrosch describes the many artworks that are shown in the book, which was very helpful, because he explains the significance of small details in the pictures that the reader could miss or not understand and also because, in the Kindle edition at least, the details were not legible, even when I enlarged the picture to full-screen size. , e.g., fig. 6 is a picture of Edward Cave holding a letter addressed to him at St. John’s Gate, a significant location.
At its best The Club is a fascinating broad sweeping portrait that also teems with delightful factoids and sidebars. It quotes extensively from sources contemporary to (and some earlier than) the Club members and from sources contemporary to Damrosch. At its worst it is annoying or confusing, as Damrosch cannot help sharing his genuinely encyclopedic knowledge of history. For example, when Damrosch describes Johnson’s friendship with writer Charlotte Lennox he tells us that Johnson organized a party for her when her first novel was published in 1751 at the Devil Tavern, which had been a favorite of Ben Jonson, who died in 1637. He then goes on to quote Ben Jonson’s friend Drummond about Jonson’s fondness for drink. Why are we talking about Ben Jonson? In another section he discusses how Boswell’s journal shows his early skill at bringing social events to life and says he “happened to meet a retired attorney at a dinner party [who] sings Tarry Woo with the English accent”. Damrosch then tells us that Tarry Woo is one of the few songs that Sir Walter Scott was willing to sing in company. I thought “Was Scott an attorney? I thought he lived later than that”. Scott was not born until 1771. So why was he mentioned here? When I see detours like this I then look to see how they tie into the subject, but often they are simply Damrosch sharing his love of information.
Readers who expect a tightly focused history of The Club based on the book title may be disappointed. If you want to enjoy it, I recommend that you approach it as Damrosch does his description of the artwork in the book: there is a lot going on, and sometimes you need to see the little details in order to get the big picture.

My thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for an advance review copy of this book. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 07, 2020 Elisa Fierro added it

This book is not a novel, but it reads like one - and that is meant as a compliment to the author. As a teacher and a student of literature, I have often had to read texts of literature history or criticism that - to me - seemed to have been written just because the author had to publish something and did not care to be understood. Well, this is not the case. Leo Damrosch is not only a well prepared historian but also a great storyteller and manages to bring the different characters to life. Thr ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

May 06, 2019 foundfoundfound rated it it was ok · review of another edition

reading, like kramer’s apartment makeover, is all about “levels”. damrosch pitches “the club” at an audience largely unfamiliar with the subj. but to anyone intimate with late augustan literature, or bozzer’s “life of johnson”, this survey won’t add much. the author’s moralising glosses are tiresome. the editing is injudicious.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Goodreads Librari...: Cover image needed for paperback version of Leo Damrosch's The Club	2	10	Feb 03, 2020 11:01PM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

History

125 users

Nonfiction

66 users

Biography

59 users

European Literature > British Literature

11 users

Literature

7 users

Philosophy

7 users

Biography Memoir

6 users

Audiobook

5 users

Literature > 18th Century

3 users

Art

3 users

See top shelves…

About Leo Damrosch

Leo Damrosch

75 followers

Leo Damrosch is an American author and professor. In 2001, he was named the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard University.[1] He received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His areas of academic specialty include Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and Puritanism.[1] Damrosch's "The Sor ...more

Books by Leo Damrosch

Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake

Books That Matter: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

More…

Power, Sister! 20 New Books on Women’s History

Happy Women's History Month! One of the undisputedly good things about modern scholarship is that women’s history is finally getting its due....

Trivia About The Club: Johnson...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from The Club: Johnson...

“An Irish clergyman was present at a dinner where someone asked what the greatest pleasure was, and Johnson replied, “Fucking.” He added that the second best was drinking, “and therefore he wondered why there were not more drunkards, for all could drink, though not all could fuck.”47” — 1 likes

“Not for nothing was Smith’s first book about moral philosophy. His concern, as Foley says, was the one that has haunted economic thinking ever since: “how to be a good person and live a good and moral life within the antagonistic, impersonal, and self-regarding social relations that capitalism imposes.” — 1 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — The Club by Leo Damrosch

The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Leo Damrosch

Books by Leo Damrosch

Related Articles

Trivia About The Club: Johnson...

Quotes from The Club: Johnson...

See a Problem?

Preview — The Club by Leo Damrosch

The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Leo Damrosch

Books by Leo Damrosch

Related Articles

Trivia About The Club: Johnson...

Quotes from The Club: Johnson...

new topic
Discuss This Book