Samuel Johnson

This all-embracing narrative of Samuel John-son's life, character, and work brings into brilliant focus the most fascinating, influential figure of England's cultural world in the latter half of the eighteenth-century. With complete authority and compelling perception, Walter Jackson Bate builds the dramatic and touching story of a loving man who, endowed with an erratic, unprepossessing personality, lived on the edge of painful poverty for fifty years, was beset by trial and tragedy, illness and fears, and yet, through fortitude and his monumental genius, made his life a triumph. His enormous and lasting contributions to thought and letters make him the rival of Shakespeare in our literary inheritance.

Bate intends more than a biography. His purpose is to shatter the stereotypes of Johnson that have too long persisted and to reveal Johnson quintessentially as a modern man speaking to modern men and women, offering a guide and lift to the human spirit. In this book that purpose is achieved.