The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
Together with his Life, and Notes on his Lives of the Poets

This collected edition of Samuel Johnson's writings was published by his literary executor, the musicologist Sir John Hawkins, in 1787.

Samuel Johnson (Author), John Hawkins (Edited by)

9781108031721, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 June 2011

486 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.8 cm, 0.61 kg

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.

The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Cowley
Denham
Milton
Butler
Rochester
Roscommon
Otway
Waller
Pomfret
Dorset
Stepney
J. Philips
Walsh
Dryden
Smith
Duke.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]