Sunday, July 17, 2011
Blog Posts From Two of My Other Blogs
I'm posting two blog posts this month, and they're from two of my other blogs.
The first post is from my old Biblio Researching blog, and it has to do with researching certain latin classics identified in the Boswell library: A Statius Check.
The second post is from my newest blog, Biblio-Connecting. And that is what it is about: Biblio-Connecting!
Enjoy!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Ten Books From Texas and Two Reminiscences
My wife and I have become quite the travelers these past two years. In April 2010, we went to Hawaii. In June 2010, we went to New York. In July 2010, we went to Fort Hood, Texas. In March 2011, we went to Cincinnati, Ohio. In June 2011, we went back to Texas. I even got book time in on some of these trips, which I will include in a future blog post.
I had thoughts of taking a side trip to Booked Up in Archer City, Larry McMurtry's town of books when we visited our oldest son Todd last year in Fort Hood Texas; but Archer City looked just a bit too far on the map for this travel-wearied bibliophile. We made it there this year!
We went to Texas to attend our oldest grandson Justin's High School Graduation Ceremony.
That's Justin above. No more pencils! No more books!
That's me below. Don't need any pencils. Just need more books!
It took Linda and I about four hours to drive from Fort Hood to Archer City. We arrived about 1 PM. Building No. 1 is where the rare books are in Archer City. There are also Building Nos. 2, 3, and 4, and an annex, each housing different genres of books. Here's the breakdown of the 300,000 books in Archer City.
I browsed some of the hundred-dollar-plus rare books in Building No. 1. Then I walked across the street to Building No. 3, browsed the 18th and 19th Century Fiction, and then concentrated on the Pamphlets Section: rows and rows of bibliographies, bookseller catalogues, auction catalogues and fine press pamphlets. I could have spent a week in that building alone, and will spend a day or two in there on my visit next year. More on that later. When I got done browsing I put one book and one pamphlet aside to buy the following day.
We left Archer City before 5 PM, and got a room for the night at a La Quinta Hotel in Wichita Falls, about twenty miles to the north. My twenty-three years in the Air Force, served in my younger days, earned us a military discount! Linda and I then went to the mall and walked and walked––it's too hot to walk outside in Texas. According to the reading in my Saturn Vue, the outside temperature in Archer City was 116 degrees. We ended up at a Books-A-Million bookstore in the mall, because the cheapest fiction book my wife could find in Archer City was twelve dollars.
Our first stop after breakfast the next day was the Mansion II Antique Mall in Wichita Falls. Besides book time for me, I wanted my wife to get some antique time in as well. The only drawback to going to Mansion II was that it didn't open until 10 AM. But the place had 2.500 books! Surprisingly, I didn't find any books I "had to have." But the proprietor told me that Three Dog Books & Alley Cat Collective right next door had books about books. Small world! On the Booked Up website there is a link to "visit our friends at Three Dog Books." Come to find out that Julie Ressell, one of the Three Dog Books owners, worked at Booked Up for years.
If I didn't know Three Dog Books was there, I would have walked right past it. On the slate board were two glorious words: old books. I bought five old books about books there:
The Legend of the Book by Gilbert Harry Doane and Eloise White Street, Chicago: The Bookfellows, 1924.
I bought this book because if its inscription:
Both Frank M. Morris (no relation) and George Steele Seymour were members of The Bookfellows, a society organized to publish books worthy of publishing. I like the book's colophon:
Colophon Respecting Craftsmanship:
"The Legend of the Book by Eloise White Street and Gilbert Harry Doane is the tenth volume in The Little Bookfellow Series. Mr. Doane is Bookfellow No. 2438. It is illustrated by photogravures of a series of mural decorations by John W. Alexander in the Library of Congress entitled, 'The Evolution of the Book.' Altogether it is a very booklie legend. Three hundred copies of this first edition have been printed by Luther Albertus Brewer, Bookfellow No. 14, at his Torch Press in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, September, nineteen twenty-four."
William Caxton & His Work: A Paper Read At a Meeting of the Club of Odd Volumes in Boston, Massachusetts in January 1908, With a Letter From the Author by George Parker Winship, Berkeley: The Book Arts Club, The University of California, 1937.
George Parker Winship talking about William Caxton? I had to have it!
A Bibliographical Ghost Visits His Old Haunts by Sir Frank Francis, Austin: The Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 1972.
Sir Frank Francis (1911-1988) was the librarian of the British Museum and a lecturer on bibliography. He was Secretary then President of the Bibliographical Society. In this talk, Francis ponders new and old techniques in the world of bibliography.
The Alchemy of Books And Other Essays on Books & Writers by Lawrence Clark Powell, Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1954.
Some of the essay titles made me buy this book: "Book Hunting in Britain. In Praise of English Books. Antiquarian Booksellers in England. A Bookman's Credo. On Reading and Collecting. Librarians as Readers of Books." And finally, "Books, People and the Earth on Which We Live."
My Study Windows by James Russell Lowell, Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1871.
I have a Shakespeare book in My Sentimental Library from Lowell's library (inscribed by James O. Halliwell-Philipps), a biography of him, and a book which includes a tour of his house. I thought I should have at least one book written by him in my library, and this one looks interesting.
The antique dealer at Mansion II also recommended that we visit an antique mall in Burkburnett, Texas, right near the Oklahoma border. Even though we would be going in the opposite direction from Archer City, I was still willing to go because my wife hadn't found any antiques at Mansion II. Mistake! The Burkburnett antique dealer had two strikes against him as soon as we took our first steps through his doors. First, he was smoking. And second, he was listening to Rush Limbaugh! Florida is a smoke-free state. Too bad Texas isn't. And Texas was hot enough without listening to hot air... Finding nothing of interest in Burkburnett, we drove south to Archer City.
We arrived in Archer City a little before 1 PM. Booked Up would be open until 5 PM, leaving me only four hours of book time. But the only cafe in the town was closing at 2 PM, so we decided to grab a quick bite to eat. Another mistake! The place was crowded with cowboys. We ordered our food a little before 1 PM. We were still waiting for our food at 1:30 P.M. My wife was fretting because she knew I wanted to get to the books.
Our food finally came (it was good) and I was at the register paying my bill a little before 2 PM. I was reading a notice near the register about Larry McMurtry's wedding, when the cashier said, "That's Larry over there," and pointed to a couple sitting at a table across from the register. Larry McMurtry had married Faye Kesey, the widow of his friend Ken Kesey the writer the same day as the Royal Wedding, but was going to have another ceremony in Archer City. I went over to their table and said to them, "Congratulations on your wedding." Then I went straight to the books about books in Building No. 4.
This is what Building No. 4 looks like from the outside:
This is what it looks like from the inside:
There were books eight rows high along three walls. In the middle were five humongous stacks of books eight rows high on both sides:
The bookstack on the left in the image below is where the books about books were, eight rows high, from floor to ceiling. I saw a lot of my favorite books about books, but I also saw a lot of books about books I had never seen before.
I went to the next row over, retrieved the ladder stand and rolled it to the books about books section. I was methodical. I looked at every spine of every book on every row, opening the books I thought interesting. What I was primarily looking for were association copies for My Sentimental Library, books that because of their association would make their purchase at Booked Up worthwhile. Even with the twenty-five percent off sale, the books were still pricy. But then, I was in Larry McMurtry's version of Hay-on-Wye, book heaven.
From a pile of ten would-be purchases in Building No. 4, I whittled it down to three:
1. Earl Percy Dines Abroad: A Boswellian Episode by Harold Murdock, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924.
I bought this book because it was formerly owned by the Johnson/Boswell collector, Arthur G. Rippey, whose bookplate is pasted on the front free endpaper (ffep). In my library, I already had a bibliography of the Johnson/Boswell books in the Rippey Collection. I also have his book, The Story of a Library: Reminiscences of a Latter-Day Book Collector.
I'm still researching the notation written above Rippey's bookplate, "English-Speaking Union Library 1925," as well as the identity of Alexander Campbell Hill, whose bookplate is pasted on the front pastedown. I believe this copy of the book went from the English-Speaking Union Library to Hill and then to Rippey. McMaster University, the alma mater of Rippey's mother, received the lion's share of Rippey's collection. The remainder was sold at auction, which is probably where McMurtry acquired it.
2. The Wish; Written by Dr. Walter Pope, Fellow of the Royal Society. Reprinted From the First Edition, With a Short Life of the Author by Mr. Beverly Chew, Printed by F. Hopkins, on the Marion Press, Jamaica Long Island, 1897.
I grew up in Jamaica right by Idlewild Airport, so this book attracted my interest. The fact that the Grolier Club member, Beverly Chew, wrote a short life of the author made me want the book even more. But what really got my attention were the inscriptions. I love researching and I wanted to find out who Shackleton, J.S.W. and S–– were.
Charles Shackleton was a member of the Rowfant Club in Cleveland. J.S.W. was John S. Wood, another Rowfant Club Member. I'm still researching the identity of S––. He might be George D. Smith, the famous bookseller who had strong ties to the Marion Press. Or S–– might be a Grolier Club member who was giving visiting Rowfant Club members a biblio tour of New York. There were 18 Grolier Club members in 1902 whose last name began with S. George D. Smith was not one of them. He didn't join the Grolier Club until 1918, two years before his death. Or, as the renowned bookseller Norman Kane recently noted in an ExLibris-L reply to my query, Hopkins previously ran the fine press division of DeVinne's workshop, so S–– could be any one of a number of book collectors Hopkins knew.
3. At the Library Table by Adrian Hoffman Joline, Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1910.
I already had two books written by Joline and a third which he contributed to. So this book made the pile easily. He is one of the better writers. I'm still researching its former owner Mr. J. M. Andrews –– or is it Ms. J.M. Andrews? I will query Lew Jaffe the Bookplatemaven to see if he is familiar with the bookplate. [[Just a quick note. Lew Jaffe says the bookplate belongs to J M Andreini, an influential bookplate collector in the early 1900s. Lucian Pissarro was the bookplate artist.]]
Remember earlier that I said I put two books aside in Building No. 3 the day before? Well I only found one of them:
The New Boswell by R. F. Freeman, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1923.
Below is the original title overleaf:
Now here is the title page that is a figment of Mr. Freeman's imagination: In the book, Johnson meets Socrates, Shakespeare, and Napoleon. And through Boswell's communications, the author tells us about Johnson's views on a variety of subjects.
The other book I had put aside was a pamphlet with a title something like "When Franklin Met Johnson." A quick glance showed that it contained a scholarly talk about when Benjamin Franklin met Samuel Johnson. I placed it on the very front of a box of pamphlets. I couldn't find the box. I had previously read that Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson both attended a meeting of a London society, possibly the Philosophical Society, but I didn't think anyone knew they "met" much less conversed. I will look for it again next year.
Next year? Yes, if not sooner. My son Todd, an Air Force weatherman, decided to make Texas his home after he retires in two years. He is currently having a house built in Copperas Cove, a community close to the base. The house is supposed to be ready in September. In November he deploys to Afghanistan to provide weather support for the Army.
And my son-in-law just moved to Texas last weekend to work on the oil rigs! He could no longer support his wife and three children in the construction business in Florida. The rest of his family will relocate to Texas in the fall. Since two of our four children, and eight of our fifteen grandchildren will be calling Texas their home, I think we'll be visiting Texas more often. And I will manage to get to Archer City for a few days!
I bought one more book in Texas, but it wasn't in Booked Up in Archer City or Three Dog Books in Wichita Falls. It was in a Goodwill store in Copperas Cove. The book brought back memories:
October 22, 1962: I was a fifteen-year old newspaper boy for the Long Island Press. On this Monday night, I was ringing doorbells and knocking on doors, trying to collect money from my customers. The lights were on in almost all the houses, but no one was answering the doorbells or coming to the doors. Finally, one customer came to his door and said, "Our country is about to go to war, and here you are trying to collect money for the paper." Everyone was listening to President Kennedy on the television. He was telling the American people that Russia had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy, With a New Forward by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
In his Forward, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. recalls what happened at a conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis conducted in Havana in January 1992. Americans, Russians, and Cubans who were involved in the crisis attended the conference. Robert McNamara almost fell off his chair when he learned for the first time that Russian soldiers had short-range battlefield nuclear weapons in addition to long-range missiles, and were given the green light to use them during an American invasion if communications were lost with Moscow, Scary.
Driving on Fort Hood triggered a memory as well:
November 5, 2009: My daughter-in-law Ana goes to the school on Fort Hood to pick up her children. She hears shooting. The school is in lock-down. No one is coming in or going out of the school. Ana calls us in Florida. My wife Linda tells Ana to take cover! We are watching it all on television. No one knows how many shooters there are. Slowly, everyone learns what happened, including my son Todd, who was in Iraq at the time and seemingly "out of harm's way."
And to think that our soldiers aren't even safe on their home base...
Saturday, May 21, 2011
My Many Lives of Samuel Johnson
James Cummings, the bookseller from Signal Mtn, Tn., is fast becoming a valuable source of books for My Sentimental Library Collection. Last month I bought a book formerly owned by William Targ from him. This month I bought two books formerly owned by the Johnsonian, Gwin J. Kolb. One of them, Kolb's copy of Johnson Before Boswell: A Study of Sir John Hawkins' Life of Samuel Johnson, will be the first book in this month's blog posting, "My Many Lives of Samuel Johnson."
Johnson Before Boswell: A Study of Sir John Hawkins' Life of Samuel Johnson, by Bertram H. Davis, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960.
Hawkins's biography of LOJ was published in 1787 and was the first full-length biography of Johnson, over 600 pages. Its popularity was short-lived because of criticism of the book and its author. James Boswell was one of Hawkins's biggest detractors. I will read Davis's book, then browse Hawkins online at ECCO via my KB Library Pass, and then form my own opinion on the worth of Hawkins's LOJ.
As a bibliomaniac, I am sometimes obsessive in my collecting habits, and maybe even excessive. I have thirty-one copies of William Strunk's Elements of Style in my Elements of Style Collection. I am fast approaching that amount in the number of biographies of Samuel Johnson in my library. And I have already exceeded that number if I use the expanded meaning of the word "biography" that O.M. Brack, Jr. and Robert E. Kelley used in their book, The Early Biographies of Samuel Johnson.
In the Preface of their book, Brack and Kelley wrote:
"Biography, for the purposes of this collection, has been rather loosely defined as any account that begins with the phrase, 'Samuel Johnson was born,' or some rough equivalent, and makes some attempt, no matter how haphazard, to survey his life or his career in chronological order."
The Early Biographies of Samuel Johnson edited by O.M. Brack Jr. and Robert E. Kelley, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1974.
I will use Brack's and Kelley's expanded meaning of biography for the display of my LOJ Collection. And I will include books written about LOJ biographies, such as the one Davis wrote about Hawkins's LOJ.
Brack and Kelley provided no less than fourteen biographies of Samuel Johnson in their book. The earliest one was written in 1762 by William Rider, and was part of his book, An Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Living Authors of Great Britian. Wherein their respective Merits are discussed with Candor and Impartiality, London, 1762. Rider's biography of Johnson contained a whole four pages. The fourteenth biography, written by James Harrison, contained eighteen pages, and appeared in his edition of A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson, London, 1786. A number of the other biographies appeared in periodicals of the day, with most of them borrowing biographical data mentioned in Biographia Dramatica, or, A Companion to the Playhouse, first published under an abbreviated title in 1764. Brack and Kelley are quick to note that the reader will find the early biographies of Johnson somewhat repetitious. Times have not changed. Writers of today's LOJs are still trying to shed new light on old subjects, and without success.
Boswell's Life of Johnson Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into South Wales by George Birkbeck Hill, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887. Six vols.
This is the "before" picture. Hill's edition of Boswell's LOJ is my most frequent source of information about Johnson's life, and by its shabby looks, was well used by its former owners. In fact, this is about how the set looked when I first bought it almost seven years ago.
An "after" picture will be forthcoming shortly, and will be posted right here. Volume VI has already been rebound in new cloth. I hope to complete all six volume in the next few days.
Tipped into the first volume was an interesting letter from G.B. Hill to a still unidentified American book collector. There was also some marginalia written in the books. I'm still researching the identity of the American book collector. I've ruled out Cowan, and am researching a Chicago bookseller, Jerrold Nedwick, whose bookseller's ticket was pasted in one of the volumes.
Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Rev. C Adams, New York: Carlton & Lanahan, 1869.
LOJ with a religious twist, written "for the young men of this country." Charles Adams was a Wesleyan minister. He was the president of Illinois Female College from 1858 until he resigned in July 1868 and became a clerk in the Dead Letter Office in Washington. A true "man of letters."
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprising a Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversation With Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition; With a Chronological Account of His Studies and Numerous Works. The Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain For Nearly Half a Century, by James Boswell (with copious notes), London: George Routledge and Sons, 1895.
596 pages of very small type. Very hard to read.
Macauley's Life of Johnson, Edited With Introduction, Notes Etc. by Albert Perry Walker, Boston: D.C. Heath & Company, 1903
Part of Heath's English Classics Series. Macaulay wrote his life of Johnson in 1856. That and his 1831 scathing review of Croker's LOJ are included in this volume.
Boswell's Life of Johnson, Edited by Augustine Birrell, Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co.., Boston, 1904. Six vols.
I am very disappointed with Birrell's editing of this set. In his Intro he says that his notes are few and far between because he deleted most of them, believing them unimportant (Most of the notes included are Malone's). Birrell praises G.B. Hill's edition of LOJ and writes, "When you know you must be beaten, the wisest course is to decline competition." That says a lot about Hill's edition! Birrell's publisher must have been having fits with Birrell praising a rival publisher's works.
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., An Abridgment, With Annotations by the Eminent Biographers and an Introduction and Notes by Mary H. Watson, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913.
Watson was a teacher at DeWitt Clinton High School in NYC. This book was part of Macmillan's Pocket American and English Classics Series.
The Life of Samuel Johnson L.L.D. by James Boswell. Complete and Unabridged With Notes. with an Introduction by Herbert Askwith, New York: The Modern Library, n.d. but c.1930.
Number G2 of the Modern Library Giant Series. 1200 pages in all.
Samuel Johnson by Joseph Wood Krutch, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1945 (1944)
I have yet to read this biography. What I like to do first is to go to the index and then read how the author presents certain portions of Johnson's life. If the author captures my interest great; if not, I don't think I'll miss anything new. I'll have to give Krutch a chance, though. He was the Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature, Columbia University, and the author of a number of books.
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell [with] Illustrations by Gordon Ross. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1946.
Part of the Literary Guild Book Club.
The Portable Johnson and Boswell, Edited, With an Introduction by Louis Kronenberger, New York: The Viking Press, 1955 (1947)
A book to take on vacations. 762 pages worth.
Mr. Oddity: Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Charles Norman, Drexel Hill, Pa: Bell Publishing Company, 1951.
In between the Table of Contents and the Forward, Norman inserts a List of Characters, thirteen of which he identifies as "Non-Boswellian sources for Johnson's Life. At 348 pages, Norman's book is at least 200 pages shorter than the average LOJ biography, but bigger is not always better. I began reading this books some years ago, but for some reason stopped reading it with my bookmark on page 197. I am putting it on my reading pile again.
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1952. Two vols.
No. 1 of the Everyman's Library Series. As Terry Seymour, author of A Guide to Collecting Everyman's Library, Bloomington, 2005, once noted to me, "Being No. 1 in the Everyman's Library Series says a lot about what J.M. Dent thought about Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson."
The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. by James Boswell, Esq. With Marginal comments and Markings From Two Copies Annotated by Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Prepared For Publication With an Introduction by Edward G. Fletcher, in Three Volumes, New York: the Heritage Press, 1963.
The same edition as the Limited Editions Club, but at a lower price and lower quality of binding. I've read some of Piozzi's comments, but need to devote a week to this set alone.
Samuel Johnson: A Biography by John Wain. New York: The Viking Press, 1974.
Read and enjoyed, but nothing stands out in my memory that puts this LOJ biography above the others.
Samuel Johnson by W. Jackson Bate. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
Sidney Ives's annotated copy with something extra that produced my essay, "An Unexpected Find in Umatilla, Florida." I found something new as well. There are over 75 page numbers written on the endpapers, and I thought these were references Ives used to create his talk before the Johnsonians. But that is not the case. The page numbers identify typos and grammatical errors in the book!
I wrote a review comparing certain portions of Nokes's book with Bate's books.
Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author by Lawrence Lipking, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998
This book is not a biography of SJ, but rather a book about his writing career. Since it provides a survey of Johnson's works in chronological order, it meets the biographical standards set by Brack and Kelley.
According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge, New York: Carroll & Graff Publishers, 2001.
I'm stretching it a bit here because this book is historical fiction. But it does present a biography of sorts of Samuel Johnson from the eyes of Hester Thrale's daughter, Queeney. I've read that Dame Beryl Bainbridge insisted the characters were real, but there is at least one notable Johnsonian who publicly doubted that.
Samuel Johnson: The Struggle by Jeffrey Meyers, New York: Basic Books, 2008
This author doesn't struggle with his writing; he just churns them out. His list of works is almost a mile long. His biography of Johnson, however, didn't appeal to me. Same old stuff.
Samuel Johnson: A Biography by Peter Martin, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008
Martin wrote biographies on Boswell and Malone as well. I have the former and want to acquire the latter.
Samuel Johnson: A Life by David Nokes, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009.
Here's a review by John Carey in the London Sunday Times, written three months before Nokes died. Nokes emphasizes Johnson's sexual tendencies – which seems to be the thing authors of today are honing in on these days, Martin and Meyers as well. The worst is Philip Baruth's ploy in The Brothers Boswell, a 2009 historical novel in which the author insinuates that Johnson had a sexual encounter with Boswell's brother. Personally, I find such writing distasteful.
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. A New Edition in Twelve Volumes With an Eessay on His Life and Genius by Arthur Murphy. Esq. London: Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington &c, 1823.
The first volume contains Murphy's essay, first published in 1793.
Murphy's "Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson" was included in the Murphy, Chalmers, and Tegg editions, and almost all other editions of Johnson's Works published after 1793.
Johnsoniana; Or Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson, Collected by Piozzi, Hawkins, Tyers, Hoole, Steevens, Reynolds, Cumberland, Cradock, Seward, Murphy, Beattie, Miss Hawkins, Windham, Nichols, Humphry, Hannah More, Parr, Mad. D'Arblay, Horne, Baretti, Lady Knight, Northcote, Percy, Stockdale, Parker, Rose, Green, Reed, Kearsley, Knowles, Smith, Warner, King Boothby, Pepys, Carter &c.&c.&c. Edited by J. Wilson Croker, Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1842.
This work contains portions of the biographies written by Hawkins and Murphy, as well as the anecdotes of a number of friends in Johnson's circle. In 1831, Croker published a new edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. It was soundly bashed by Macaulay.
Johnsonian Miscellanies Arranged and Edited by George Birkbeck Hill, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897. 2 vols.
I include this work because it contains Johnson's Annals covering his life from birth to his eleventh year, Murphy's essay in its entirety, extracts from Hawkins's LOJ, the Piozzi Anecdotes, and more.
Johnsonian Gleanings, (3 of 10 vols) by Aleyn Lyell Reade, New York: Octagon Books, 1968 (1923-33)
I ordered Vol V on ebay because the appendix contained a listing of Johnson's Undergraduate Library thoroughly researched by Reade. The ebay seller had three volumes up for auction and sent me the wrong one. I ended up buying all three volumes just to make sure I got the right one. Vol. 4 contains appendices pertaining to Johnson's boyhood. Vol. 5 covers Johnson's life from 1728 to 1735, and Vol. 6 covers Johnson's life from 1735 to 1740.
Macaulay's and Carlyle's Essays on Samuel Johnson Edited With Introduction and Notes by William Strunk, Jr. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1895, 96.
Yes. I have two copies. Strunk was an instructor, and later a Professor, at Cornell University when he wrote this book. He was to become one of the leading Shakespeare authorities of his time. He was also the author of my favorite grammar book, The Elements of Style. Strunk's book on Johnson contains a forty-page introduction which includes a chronological table of Johnson's entire life, followed by words of wisdom on Croker's edition of Boswell's LOJ, and Strunk's views on Boswell, Macaulay and Carlyle. And that's just the Intro. Follow that by Macaulay's trouncing review of Croker's edition, and Carlyle's essay which is in effect his response to Macaulay's review. Moi recommends!
On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle, London: Chapman & Hall, 1840.
I include this work because Carlyle briefly but eloquently describes Johnson's life and his works in his essay, "The Hero as Man of Letters."
Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson's Middle Years by James Clifford, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981 (1979).
I include this work because it covers the most productive portion of Johnson's writing career from the Rambler to the Dictionary to the Idler and to Rasselas.
Boswell the Great Biographer 1789-1795, Edited by Marlies K. Davies and Frank Brady, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1989.
A gift from James Caudle, Associate Editor of the Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell during my visit to the Sterling Library, Yale University in June 2010 with Terry Seymour and Dave Larkin.
A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors Living and Deceased From the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century...by S. Austin Allibone, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1874, 3 Vols and 2 Supp.
Allibone devotes 11 pages to Johnson, providing a short biography and covering all his works in chronological order.
Everyman's Dictionary of Literary Biography English & American Compiled after John w. Cousin by D.C. Browning, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1958.
My ready reference. Sits on the edge of a nearby shelf for easy access.
Studies of a Booklover by Thomas Marc Parrott, New York: James Pott & Company, 1904.
Parrot was a Professor of English at Princeton University. This work contains a forty-one page chapter on "The Personality of Johnson." What qualifies the piece as a "biography" is a paragraph that begins, "Samuel Johnson was born in the cathedral town of Lichfield in 1709..."
The Chobham Book of English Prose by Stephen Coleridge, Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1924.
Coleridge's essay on Johnson is but one of the 54 essays included in this book. Also included is a short essay on Boswell. Coleridge does not begin his essay with "Samuel Johnson was born..." nor does he cover Johnson's works in chronological order. But the quality of the essay is such that I would include it in any listing of the LOJ.
Note: On the front pastedown, a former owner wrote the name of the place where he acquired this copy of the book: "The Old Corner Bookstore 1925."
In the Name of the Bodleian by Augustine Birrell, New York: Cahrles Scribner's Sons, 1905.
Two essays nominate this book for inclusion in my blog entry on "My Many Lives of Samuel Johnson." "The Johnsonian legend" reviews not only G.B. HIll's edition of Boswell's LOJ, but also the Johnsonian Miscellanies. And Birrell's essay, "Boswell as Biographer" seeks to show that both Macaulay and Carlyle were wrong about Boswell. Birrell wrote an essay specifically on Dr. Johnson in Obiter Dicta, Second Series that is well worth reading as well, but I would really be stretching it to call it "a biography" or "a review of a biography." It is more about Johnson's character.
The Wit and Sagacity of Dr. Johnson, Selected and Arranged by Norman J. Davidson, London: Seeley & Co., n.d..
From the Intro: "Samuel Johnson, lexicographer, essayist, poet, and philosopher, was born at Lichfield, September 18, 1709..."
This just about completes my blog on "My Many Lives of Samuel Johnson." For brevity purposes, I have omitted well over ten works from the likes of Dobson, Hyde, Fleeman, Taine, and others which would have qualified under my expanded definition of biography. Some of these works are listed in My Samuel Johnson Collection on Library Thing.
Johnson Before Boswell: A Study of Sir John Hawkins' Life of Samuel Johnson, by Bertram H. Davis, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960.
Hawkins's biography of LOJ was published in 1787 and was the first full-length biography of Johnson, over 600 pages. Its popularity was short-lived because of criticism of the book and its author. James Boswell was one of Hawkins's biggest detractors. I will read Davis's book, then browse Hawkins online at ECCO via my KB Library Pass, and then form my own opinion on the worth of Hawkins's LOJ.
As a bibliomaniac, I am sometimes obsessive in my collecting habits, and maybe even excessive. I have thirty-one copies of William Strunk's Elements of Style in my Elements of Style Collection. I am fast approaching that amount in the number of biographies of Samuel Johnson in my library. And I have already exceeded that number if I use the expanded meaning of the word "biography" that O.M. Brack, Jr. and Robert E. Kelley used in their book, The Early Biographies of Samuel Johnson.
In the Preface of their book, Brack and Kelley wrote:
"Biography, for the purposes of this collection, has been rather loosely defined as any account that begins with the phrase, 'Samuel Johnson was born,' or some rough equivalent, and makes some attempt, no matter how haphazard, to survey his life or his career in chronological order."
The Early Biographies of Samuel Johnson edited by O.M. Brack Jr. and Robert E. Kelley, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1974.
I will use Brack's and Kelley's expanded meaning of biography for the display of my LOJ Collection. And I will include books written about LOJ biographies, such as the one Davis wrote about Hawkins's LOJ.
Brack and Kelley provided no less than fourteen biographies of Samuel Johnson in their book. The earliest one was written in 1762 by William Rider, and was part of his book, An Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Living Authors of Great Britian. Wherein their respective Merits are discussed with Candor and Impartiality, London, 1762. Rider's biography of Johnson contained a whole four pages. The fourteenth biography, written by James Harrison, contained eighteen pages, and appeared in his edition of A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson, London, 1786. A number of the other biographies appeared in periodicals of the day, with most of them borrowing biographical data mentioned in Biographia Dramatica, or, A Companion to the Playhouse, first published under an abbreviated title in 1764. Brack and Kelley are quick to note that the reader will find the early biographies of Johnson somewhat repetitious. Times have not changed. Writers of today's LOJs are still trying to shed new light on old subjects, and without success.
Boswell's Life of Johnson Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into South Wales by George Birkbeck Hill, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887. Six vols.
This is the "before" picture. Hill's edition of Boswell's LOJ is my most frequent source of information about Johnson's life, and by its shabby looks, was well used by its former owners. In fact, this is about how the set looked when I first bought it almost seven years ago.
An "after" picture will be forthcoming shortly, and will be posted right here. Volume VI has already been rebound in new cloth. I hope to complete all six volume in the next few days.
Tipped into the first volume was an interesting letter from G.B. Hill to a still unidentified American book collector. There was also some marginalia written in the books. I'm still researching the identity of the American book collector. I've ruled out Cowan, and am researching a Chicago bookseller, Jerrold Nedwick, whose bookseller's ticket was pasted in one of the volumes.
Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Rev. C Adams, New York: Carlton & Lanahan, 1869.
LOJ with a religious twist, written "for the young men of this country." Charles Adams was a Wesleyan minister. He was the president of Illinois Female College from 1858 until he resigned in July 1868 and became a clerk in the Dead Letter Office in Washington. A true "man of letters."
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprising a Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversation With Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition; With a Chronological Account of His Studies and Numerous Works. The Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain For Nearly Half a Century, by James Boswell (with copious notes), London: George Routledge and Sons, 1895.
596 pages of very small type. Very hard to read.
Macauley's Life of Johnson, Edited With Introduction, Notes Etc. by Albert Perry Walker, Boston: D.C. Heath & Company, 1903
Part of Heath's English Classics Series. Macaulay wrote his life of Johnson in 1856. That and his 1831 scathing review of Croker's LOJ are included in this volume.
Boswell's Life of Johnson, Edited by Augustine Birrell, Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co.., Boston, 1904. Six vols.
I am very disappointed with Birrell's editing of this set. In his Intro he says that his notes are few and far between because he deleted most of them, believing them unimportant (Most of the notes included are Malone's). Birrell praises G.B. Hill's edition of LOJ and writes, "When you know you must be beaten, the wisest course is to decline competition." That says a lot about Hill's edition! Birrell's publisher must have been having fits with Birrell praising a rival publisher's works.
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., An Abridgment, With Annotations by the Eminent Biographers and an Introduction and Notes by Mary H. Watson, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913.
Watson was a teacher at DeWitt Clinton High School in NYC. This book was part of Macmillan's Pocket American and English Classics Series.
The Life of Samuel Johnson L.L.D. by James Boswell. Complete and Unabridged With Notes. with an Introduction by Herbert Askwith, New York: The Modern Library, n.d. but c.1930.
Number G2 of the Modern Library Giant Series. 1200 pages in all.
Samuel Johnson by Joseph Wood Krutch, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1945 (1944)
I have yet to read this biography. What I like to do first is to go to the index and then read how the author presents certain portions of Johnson's life. If the author captures my interest great; if not, I don't think I'll miss anything new. I'll have to give Krutch a chance, though. He was the Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature, Columbia University, and the author of a number of books.
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell [with] Illustrations by Gordon Ross. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1946.
Part of the Literary Guild Book Club.
The Portable Johnson and Boswell, Edited, With an Introduction by Louis Kronenberger, New York: The Viking Press, 1955 (1947)
A book to take on vacations. 762 pages worth.
Mr. Oddity: Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Charles Norman, Drexel Hill, Pa: Bell Publishing Company, 1951.
In between the Table of Contents and the Forward, Norman inserts a List of Characters, thirteen of which he identifies as "Non-Boswellian sources for Johnson's Life. At 348 pages, Norman's book is at least 200 pages shorter than the average LOJ biography, but bigger is not always better. I began reading this books some years ago, but for some reason stopped reading it with my bookmark on page 197. I am putting it on my reading pile again.
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1952. Two vols.
No. 1 of the Everyman's Library Series. As Terry Seymour, author of A Guide to Collecting Everyman's Library, Bloomington, 2005, once noted to me, "Being No. 1 in the Everyman's Library Series says a lot about what J.M. Dent thought about Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson."
The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. by James Boswell, Esq. With Marginal comments and Markings From Two Copies Annotated by Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Prepared For Publication With an Introduction by Edward G. Fletcher, in Three Volumes, New York: the Heritage Press, 1963.
The same edition as the Limited Editions Club, but at a lower price and lower quality of binding. I've read some of Piozzi's comments, but need to devote a week to this set alone.
Samuel Johnson: A Biography by John Wain. New York: The Viking Press, 1974.
Read and enjoyed, but nothing stands out in my memory that puts this LOJ biography above the others.
Samuel Johnson by W. Jackson Bate. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
Sidney Ives's annotated copy with something extra that produced my essay, "An Unexpected Find in Umatilla, Florida." I found something new as well. There are over 75 page numbers written on the endpapers, and I thought these were references Ives used to create his talk before the Johnsonians. But that is not the case. The page numbers identify typos and grammatical errors in the book!
I wrote a review comparing certain portions of Nokes's book with Bate's books.
Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author by Lawrence Lipking, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998
This book is not a biography of SJ, but rather a book about his writing career. Since it provides a survey of Johnson's works in chronological order, it meets the biographical standards set by Brack and Kelley.
According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge, New York: Carroll & Graff Publishers, 2001.
I'm stretching it a bit here because this book is historical fiction. But it does present a biography of sorts of Samuel Johnson from the eyes of Hester Thrale's daughter, Queeney. I've read that Dame Beryl Bainbridge insisted the characters were real, but there is at least one notable Johnsonian who publicly doubted that.
Samuel Johnson: The Struggle by Jeffrey Meyers, New York: Basic Books, 2008
This author doesn't struggle with his writing; he just churns them out. His list of works is almost a mile long. His biography of Johnson, however, didn't appeal to me. Same old stuff.
Samuel Johnson: A Biography by Peter Martin, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008
Martin wrote biographies on Boswell and Malone as well. I have the former and want to acquire the latter.
Samuel Johnson: A Life by David Nokes, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009.
Here's a review by John Carey in the London Sunday Times, written three months before Nokes died. Nokes emphasizes Johnson's sexual tendencies – which seems to be the thing authors of today are honing in on these days, Martin and Meyers as well. The worst is Philip Baruth's ploy in The Brothers Boswell, a 2009 historical novel in which the author insinuates that Johnson had a sexual encounter with Boswell's brother. Personally, I find such writing distasteful.
Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson by Adam Sisman, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000
To quote the blurb on the book jacket: "A dazzling study of the biographer at work."
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. A New Edition in Twelve Volumes With an Eessay on His Life and Genius by Arthur Murphy. Esq. London: Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington &c, 1823.
The first volume contains Murphy's essay, first published in 1793.
Murphy's "Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson" was included in the Murphy, Chalmers, and Tegg editions, and almost all other editions of Johnson's Works published after 1793.
Johnsoniana; Or Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson, Collected by Piozzi, Hawkins, Tyers, Hoole, Steevens, Reynolds, Cumberland, Cradock, Seward, Murphy, Beattie, Miss Hawkins, Windham, Nichols, Humphry, Hannah More, Parr, Mad. D'Arblay, Horne, Baretti, Lady Knight, Northcote, Percy, Stockdale, Parker, Rose, Green, Reed, Kearsley, Knowles, Smith, Warner, King Boothby, Pepys, Carter &c.&c.&c. Edited by J. Wilson Croker, Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1842.
This work contains portions of the biographies written by Hawkins and Murphy, as well as the anecdotes of a number of friends in Johnson's circle. In 1831, Croker published a new edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. It was soundly bashed by Macaulay.
Johnsonian Miscellanies Arranged and Edited by George Birkbeck Hill, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897. 2 vols.
I include this work because it contains Johnson's Annals covering his life from birth to his eleventh year, Murphy's essay in its entirety, extracts from Hawkins's LOJ, the Piozzi Anecdotes, and more.
Johnsonian Gleanings, (3 of 10 vols) by Aleyn Lyell Reade, New York: Octagon Books, 1968 (1923-33)
I ordered Vol V on ebay because the appendix contained a listing of Johnson's Undergraduate Library thoroughly researched by Reade. The ebay seller had three volumes up for auction and sent me the wrong one. I ended up buying all three volumes just to make sure I got the right one. Vol. 4 contains appendices pertaining to Johnson's boyhood. Vol. 5 covers Johnson's life from 1728 to 1735, and Vol. 6 covers Johnson's life from 1735 to 1740.
Macaulay's and Carlyle's Essays on Samuel Johnson Edited With Introduction and Notes by William Strunk, Jr. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1895, 96.
Yes. I have two copies. Strunk was an instructor, and later a Professor, at Cornell University when he wrote this book. He was to become one of the leading Shakespeare authorities of his time. He was also the author of my favorite grammar book, The Elements of Style. Strunk's book on Johnson contains a forty-page introduction which includes a chronological table of Johnson's entire life, followed by words of wisdom on Croker's edition of Boswell's LOJ, and Strunk's views on Boswell, Macaulay and Carlyle. And that's just the Intro. Follow that by Macaulay's trouncing review of Croker's edition, and Carlyle's essay which is in effect his response to Macaulay's review. Moi recommends!
On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle, London: Chapman & Hall, 1840.
I include this work because Carlyle briefly but eloquently describes Johnson's life and his works in his essay, "The Hero as Man of Letters."
Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson's Middle Years by James Clifford, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981 (1979).
I include this work because it covers the most productive portion of Johnson's writing career from the Rambler to the Dictionary to the Idler and to Rasselas.
Boswell the Great Biographer 1789-1795, Edited by Marlies K. Davies and Frank Brady, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1989.
A gift from James Caudle, Associate Editor of the Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell during my visit to the Sterling Library, Yale University in June 2010 with Terry Seymour and Dave Larkin.
A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors Living and Deceased From the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century...by S. Austin Allibone, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1874, 3 Vols and 2 Supp.
Allibone devotes 11 pages to Johnson, providing a short biography and covering all his works in chronological order.
Everyman's Dictionary of Literary Biography English & American Compiled after John w. Cousin by D.C. Browning, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1958.
My ready reference. Sits on the edge of a nearby shelf for easy access.
Studies of a Booklover by Thomas Marc Parrott, New York: James Pott & Company, 1904.
Parrot was a Professor of English at Princeton University. This work contains a forty-one page chapter on "The Personality of Johnson." What qualifies the piece as a "biography" is a paragraph that begins, "Samuel Johnson was born in the cathedral town of Lichfield in 1709..."
The Chobham Book of English Prose by Stephen Coleridge, Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1924.
Coleridge's essay on Johnson is but one of the 54 essays included in this book. Also included is a short essay on Boswell. Coleridge does not begin his essay with "Samuel Johnson was born..." nor does he cover Johnson's works in chronological order. But the quality of the essay is such that I would include it in any listing of the LOJ.
Note: On the front pastedown, a former owner wrote the name of the place where he acquired this copy of the book: "The Old Corner Bookstore 1925."
In the Name of the Bodleian by Augustine Birrell, New York: Cahrles Scribner's Sons, 1905.
Two essays nominate this book for inclusion in my blog entry on "My Many Lives of Samuel Johnson." "The Johnsonian legend" reviews not only G.B. HIll's edition of Boswell's LOJ, but also the Johnsonian Miscellanies. And Birrell's essay, "Boswell as Biographer" seeks to show that both Macaulay and Carlyle were wrong about Boswell. Birrell wrote an essay specifically on Dr. Johnson in Obiter Dicta, Second Series that is well worth reading as well, but I would really be stretching it to call it "a biography" or "a review of a biography." It is more about Johnson's character.
The Wit and Sagacity of Dr. Johnson, Selected and Arranged by Norman J. Davidson, London: Seeley & Co., n.d..
From the Intro: "Samuel Johnson, lexicographer, essayist, poet, and philosopher, was born at Lichfield, September 18, 1709..."
This just about completes my blog on "My Many Lives of Samuel Johnson." For brevity purposes, I have omitted well over ten works from the likes of Dobson, Hyde, Fleeman, Taine, and others which would have qualified under my expanded definition of biography. Some of these works are listed in My Samuel Johnson Collection on Library Thing.
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- Jerry Morris
- I am a book collector. I enjoy reading, researching, and writing about books. I have six blogs, five of which pertain to books:Biblio-Connecting My Sentimental Library Bibliophiles In My Library Biblio Researching The Displaced Book Collector. Idlewild Blue Yonder
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