Samuel Johnson: A Biography

This heavily detailed biography is the result of enormous research combined with a deep respect and caring about Samuel Johnson. Johnson’s intelligence led him to combine insights about human behavior with language that perfectly captures those insights through poetry, metaphor, and remarks that are both humorous and enlightening. Bate scatters those remarks throughout the book. Johnson's work on the Dictionary is for a modern computer-raised reader virtually unbelievable and is one of several sections which show a level of intellectual dedication in difficult circumstances that make for a world that takes us completely out of our own.In presenting Johnson’s life Bate does a first-rate job of showing how such originality arose in Johnson’s childhood and continued to function throughout his life. A major part of Johnson’s personal development was the necessity to deal with what many scholars today believe was Tourette syndrome. Johnson’s social interactions would suddenly be interrupted by tics, odd head movements, limb spasms, and other behavior that baffled and very often put off those who first met him. Bate gives several examples in the course of the book of comments about Johnson’s condition by those he met. High intelligence, determination and courage had to overcome what for many in his time would have been an unbearable condition. But Johnson not only worked through his condition (which may have, as with the personal difficulties of other artists, helped to produce an original angle on life’s events) but his intelligence and social skills made his mannerisms irrelevant and consequently made him a sought-after figure as he got older.It is all here – the influence of certain key people in his youth, the two periods of his life in which “melancholy” took control of him for years at a time, his incredible writing skills in terms of quality, amount and speed, his special relationship with a couple (the Thrales) that gave significant meaning to the last part of his life, and, of course, how Boswell became his friend and his first and most famous biographer. If I have any issue with the book it is Bate’s style. The biography was first published in 1975 but when I began the work it struck me as having a writing style much more common in the 19th and early 20th century. Bate spends a good deal of space elaborating on points made in the biography, quite different from modern biographies. His writing is, as others have called the Victorian or Edwardian style, “thick.” Sometimes his observations are historical, some psychological (e.g., allusions to Freud’s way of understanding personality dynamics), some sociological. Bate never breaks the ongoing narrative of Johnson’s life but his writing is “expansive,” usually helpful to the reader but often at times what seemed to me excessive.So my recommendation is, if you are bothered or surprised (or possibly discouraged) by Bate’s writing style at first, work past it. This is a rich biography filled with information and insight into a brilliant man whose struggles to overcome his bodily and mental weaknesses led to creative work unique in Western literature.

Dr. Samuel Johnson (1908-1784) is one of those few individuals who lent their name to a historical period. The Age of Johnson was the time of of Oliver Goldsmith, Joshua Reynolds, his own biographer James Boswell, David Garrick the actor and poet Alexander Pope , William Hogarth and an arrary of literary and artistic British talent. Samuel was born to the poor tanner Michael Johnson and his wife Sarah. Tall Sameuel was born with poor eyesight and an unseemly body. He suffered from scrofula. Johnson studied at the local grammar school and spent one year at Oxford before his money ran out. He wed a woman many years his senior named Elizabeth., She died in 1752. Dr. Johnson is second only to Shakespeare in the times he is quoted. Johnson's greatest work is his monumental Dictionary of the English Language published in 1755. Other great works include his poem The Vanity of Human Wishes, essays in the Rambler series andthe play Irene. He was a noted moralist and a devoted member of the Church of England. Dr Johnson was Tory inpolitics and hated slavery and cruelty. His fame as a storyteller, humorist and moralist is on full display in Boswell's Life of Johnson, He was often in pain due to a variety of ailments and was poor for much of his life. Dr. Bate of Harvard wrote this biography many years ago and it is often cited as one of the greatest biographies in the English Language. It is not an easy read but it is a valuable exercise for those interested in the life of a great man.

W. Jackson Bate's highly praised "Samuel Johnson: A Biography" is in its fourth edition since first publication in 1975. Its 600+ pages constitute an exhaustive and very nearly definitive biography of the great journalist, poet, author, moralist, literary critic, political commentator, and lexicographer of late 18th Century England.Bate examines in great detail Johnson's challenging life for the basis and context of his astonishing literary skills, great sense of morality, and perhaps greater sense of humanity. Bate begins with Johnson's difficult childhood and proceeds through his checkered attendance at school, his lifelong struggle to make a living, and his bouts with persistent poverty, mental depression and physical ill-health, to his final years as the grand old man of his literary world.Along the way, Bate carefully explores the development, and the nuances, of Johnson's religious, political, and moral views, and of course of his relationships with his many famous and infamous friends, including his biographer Boswell. While Bate purposely emphasizes biography over literary criticism, he must and does address Johnson's prodigous output. The resulting narrative is a detailed portrait of a complex and fascinating man, made wiser and more understanding of his world by his difficult passage through it. The book includes a nice selection of prints and portraits. Bate does not address the recent, posthumous diagnosis that Johnson may have suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, which could account for his distracting physical mannerisms."Samuel Johnson: A Biography" is very highly recommended to students of the life and times of a great man.

Not as complete as Boswell, but a great read after you read Boswell. Not enough information on his tics and peculiarities. I would have liked to have his opinion on whether or not he had Tourette syndrome. Very readable and well researched.

informative and hilarious.

An excellent book.

I like it!!!! AAAA++++ seller!!