000			02487cam a2200229 a 4500
001			013288
005			20231009192203.0
008			101604s2008 mauaf b 000 0 eng
010			_a2008011327
020			_a9780674031609
050	0	0	_aPR3533 _b.M385 2008
082	0	0	_a92 JOH
100	1		_aMartin, Peter _d, 1940-
245	1	0	_aSamuel Johnson _b: a biography _c/ Peter Martin
260			_aCambridge, Mass. _b: Harvard University Press _c, 2008.
300			_axxviii, 608 p., [24] p. of plates _b: col. ill. _c; 24 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [565]-572).
520			_aBewigged, muscular and for his day unusually tall, adorned in soiled, rumpled clothes, beset by involuntary tics, opinionated, powered in his conversation by a prodigious memory and intellect, Samuel Johnson (1709ndash;1784) was in his life a literary and social icon as no other age has produced. Johnsonianissimus, as Boswell called him, became in the hands of his first biographers the rationalist epitome and sage of Enlightenment. These cliche acute, though they contain elements of truth-distort the complexity of the public and private Johnson. Peter Martin portrays a Johnson wracked by recriminations, self-doubt, and depression-a man whose religious faith seems only to have deepened his fears. His essays, scholarship, biography, journalism, travel writing, sermons, fables, as well as other forms of prose and poetry in which he probed himself and the world around him, Martin shows, constituted rational triumphs against despair and depression. It is precisely the combination of enormous intelligence and frank personal weakness that makes Johnson's writing so compelling. Benefiting from recent critical scholarship that has explored new attitudes toward Johnson, Martinrsquo;s biography gives us a human and sympathetic portrait of Dr. Johnson. Johnsonr's criticism of colonial expansion, his advocacy for the abolition of slavery, his encouragement of women writers, his treatment of his female friends as equals, and his concern for the underprivileged and poor make him a very modern figure. The Johnson that emerges from this enthralling biography, published for the tercentenary of Johnson's birth, is still the foremost figure of his age but a more rebellious, unpredictable, flawed, and sympathetic figure than has been previously known.
600	1	0	_aJohnson, Samuel _d, 1709-1784
650		4	_aAuthors, English _y-18th century _v--Biography
942			_cMO
999			_c231750 _d231750