1st Edition

Samuel Johnson A Critical Study

By J.P. Hardy Copyright 1979
240 Pages
by Routledge

240 Pages
by Routledge

Dr Samuel Johnson’s literary works are full of variety and interest. They include biographies, essays, political pamphlets, significant poems, a body of literary criticism remarkable for its range and shrewdness, a famous dictionary, and an edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Throughout his life, Johnson suffered from strong feelings of guilt and a very real fear of insanity. These feelings had a... Read more

1. Johnson and his age  2. Beginnings  3. Poetry  4. Periodical Essays  5. Dictionary  6. Rasselas  7. Edition of Shakespeare  8. Lives of the Poets  Epilogue

Biography

John Hardy, an Australian Rhodes Scholar, completed his Oxford doctorate as a “prize fellow” of Magdalen College, and after teaching for a year at the University of Toronto, returned to Australia as Professor of English at the University of New England and Australian National University, before becoming a Foundation Dean at Bond University, from which he retired as Emeritus Professor.  During the 1980s he was Fellow and Secretary of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and director of its project for the Australian Bicentenary.  He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including major books of literary criticism on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dr Johnson and Jane Austen. Reinterpretations, his book of essays, received very favourable notice in British Book News.