A Johnson Sampler (Nonpareil Book)

Rating:
Summary: Thoughts and expression; not just the quick quips.
Review: .
I am so glad that this book is finally back in print. For many people, their exposure to Samuel Johnson is limited to the short witticisms, or the one line quotations in Bartlett's. There have been noteworthy efforts to go beyond this (and Stephen Daenckert's "The Quotable Johnson" is a good step in that direction, though of somewhat limited scope), but for me Curwen's "Johnson Sampler" is one of the best. (I'm partial to my web site, samueljohnson.com, but that's another story...)

Here's what Curwen does that is special. First, he doesn't hesitate to quote an entire paragraph or more when appropriate. In doing that, you're open to a specific train of thought; if the criterion were brevity, you'd never have seen Johnson's thinking. Second, Curwen arranges these into a dozen or so thematically-based chapters of 15-30 pages. This collation allows you to compare Johnson's thinking about specific subjects over time and in different lights.

The chapters are the major themes one finds when one spends a lot of time reading Johnson: reading & writing, teaching & learning, man as a social animal, etc. All in all, I think this is a handy volume to have.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughts and expression; not just the quick quips.
Review: .
I am so glad that this book is finally back in print. For many people, their exposure to Samuel Johnson is limited to the short witticisms, or the one line quotations in Bartlett's. There have been noteworthy efforts to go beyond this (and Stephen Daenckert's "The Quotable Johnson" is a good step in that direction, though of somewhat limited scope), but for me Curwen's "Johnson Sampler" is one of the best. (I'm partial to my web site, samueljohnson.com, but that's another story...)

Here's what Curwen does that is special. First, he doesn't hesitate to quote an entire paragraph or more when appropriate. In doing that, you're open to a specific train of thought; if the criterion were brevity, you'd never have seen Johnson's thinking. Second, Curwen arranges these into a dozen or so thematically-based chapters of 15-30 pages. This collation allows you to compare Johnson's thinking about specific subjects over time and in different lights.

The chapters are the major themes one finds when one spends a lot of time reading Johnson: reading & writing, teaching & learning, man as a social animal, etc. All in all, I think this is a handy volume to have.