The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781108031721)

Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of English literature, as a poet, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. This collected edition of his works - commissioned by the publisher within hours of Johnson's death, such was his celebrity - was published in 1787 in eleven volumes, edited by his literary executor, the musicologist Sir John Hawkins. Volume 2 contains the first part of his Lives of the Poets, his last major work. This was a commission to provide short accounts of over fifty poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and set a new standard for English literary biography. Although not all of the subjects have been regarded as eminent by posterity, and Johnson was criticised for brusque treatment of well-connected courtier poets now largely forgotten, the work was a great success.

Author: Samuel Johnson
ISBN-10: 1108031722
ISBN-13: 9781108031721
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/02/2011
Pages: 486
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 1.08d