The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Volume 2: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets Contributor(s): Johnson, Samuel (Author), Hawkins, John (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1139056409 ISBN-13: 9781139056403 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $72.25 Product Type: Open Ebook Published: September 2011 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
Series: Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies |
Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: 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. |