1st Edition
Samuel Johnson in Perspective Poetry, Criticism and Cultural Relations
Preface and Acknowledgements
A Note on Major Editions Cited and Short Titles
Introduction: ‘Johnson Studies’ and the Common Reader
PHILIP SMALLWOOD
PART 1: Poetry and the Criticism of Poetry
1 ‘Perpetually a Poet’: Johnson’s Poetry in Verse and Prose
PHILIP SMALLWOOD
2 ‘Pointed Axioms and Acute Replies’: The Fascination of Johnson’s Overlooked ‘Lives’
ADAM ROUNCE
3 Richard Hurd’s Select Works of Cowley (1772) and Johnson’s Art of Selection
MICHAEL EDSON
4 Johnson’s Dryden
DAVID HOPKINS
5 ‘Prior Is Never Low, Nor Very Often Sublime’: Matthew Prior, Johnson, and Hard Work versus Inspiration
CONRAD BRUNSTRÖM
6 ‘Splendid Amplifications’: Johnson’s ‘Life of Pope’
IAN CALVERT
PART 2: Cultural Relations
7 Athwart the Enlightenment: Samuel Johnson’s Philosophical and Intellectual Engagements
FRANS DE BRUYN
8 ‘Poor Bear’: Lady Anne Lindsay Barnard’s Dr. Johnson
GREG CLINGHAM
9 ‘I Smell You in the Dark’: Johnson, Orange Peel and the Art of Biography
KATE CHISHOLM
10 Johnson and the Definition of Silence
ANTHONY HOWE
11 Boswell’s Authority as Reader and Critic of Johnson’s Works
PAUL TANKARD
12 Johnson and the Victorians
PHIL JONES
13 Old House, New Views: A Curator’s Perspective
CELINE LUPPO MCDAID
Biography
Philip Smallwood is Emeritus Professor of English at Birmingham City University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK. His latest prize‑winning monograph, The Literary Criticism of Samuel Johnson, was published in 2023.
