The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson

Greg Clingham editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:29th Sep '22

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The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson cover

Deeply informed and accessible, this Companion unveils Johnson's strikingly progressive engagement in literature, politics, and society.

Invaluable for students, scholars, and general readers, this new Companion is deeply informed and appealingly written, offering fresh insight into Johnson's engagement with eighteenth-century literature, society, politics, and culture and revealing the surprising contemporaneity of his thinking about social justice, slavery, gender, and disability.Students, scholars, and general readers alike will find the New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson deeply informed and appealingly written. Each newly commissioned chapter explores aspects of Johnson's writing and thought, including his ethical grasp of life, his views of language, the roots of his ideas in Renaissance humanism, and his skeptical-humane style. Among the themes engaged are history, disability, gender, politics, race, slavery, Johnson's representation in art, and the significance of the Yale Edition. Works discussed include Johnson's poetry and fiction, his moral essays and political tracts, his Shakespeare edition and Dictionary, and his critical, biographical, and travel writing. A narrated Further Reading provides an informative guide to the study of Johnson, and a substantial Introduction highlights how his literary practice, philosophical values, and life experience provide a challenge to readers new and established. Through fresh, integrated insights, this authoritative guide reveals the surprising contemporaneity of Johnson's thought.

'This book functions not as a replacement of but as a companion to the 1997 publication. It is an excellent way to introduce newcomers to Johnsonian scholarship, and a useful way for old hands to catch up on current conversations. The contributions are all well focused and clearly written, making the collection accessible to undergraduates as well as professionals. … Highly recommended.' J. T. Lynch, Choice

ISBN: 9781108965781

Dimensions: 228mm x 151mm x 15mm

Weight: 430g

275 pages