Samuel Johnson and His World - Hardcover

This book not only provides a full account of Johnson's main traits and actions and accomplishments, but places him in the world in which he struggled to survive and which eventually he came triumphantly to dominate. Here we sense the sights and smells of Fleet Street, the noise of the coffee houses where the great verbal battles were waged, the atmospheres pervading the luxurious mansions of the great and the intolerable squalor of the slums. Surrounding the central figure we are shown such other vivid personalities as Garrick, Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Lord Chesterfield, the Thrales, and that inspired note-taker, the alternately irresistible and insufferable Boswell. In those who already know Johnson well, these pages will produce a reawakening; to those who know him little or not at all, they will prove a revelation. This entrancing literary sketch is illustrated by a wealth of pictures - 16 in colour and over 100 monochromes - including some that have never before appeared in a biography.