Tag Archives: samuel johnson

Boswell and Johnson’s enjoyable tour marred by irritating annotator

Posted on March 31, 2011 by

As I mentioned in my last post, reading Michael Innes’s From London Far spurred me on to reread Johnson & Boswell’s Hebridean journals. I had forgotten about Peter Levi’s notes – irritating, sometimes glossing things which don’t need it and … Continue reading →

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The Female Quixote: or the Adventures of Arabella by Charlotte Lennox

Posted on November 9, 2010 by

I’m a bit disappointed in this book. It has a one-joke plot, and after the first 200-or-so pages it wears a bit thin. The conceit of the novel is that the heroine, Arabella, has been kept in rustic isolation, spending … Continue reading →

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Dr. Johnson’s House and Bill Bryson at Guildhall

Posted on October 1, 2010 by

I have been telling myself for years that I would visit Samuel Johnson’s House in London, more so since I visited his Birthplace Museum back in June. I was due at Guildhall in the City for 5.30, so decided I’d … Continue reading →

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Dr Johnson & Mrs Thrale’s Tour in North Wales 1774

Posted on July 11, 2010 by

Poor Hester Thrale, she had high hopes for her tour of North Wales with Samuel Johnson. In 1773 he had made his famous tour to the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles with James Boswell, which he enjoyed immensely, and which … Continue reading →

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Translations of elderly literature – and place-names

Posted on July 6, 2010 by

‘I have endeavoured to make him speak that kind of English, which he would have spoken had he lived in England, and had written to this age.’ That’s what Dryden said as translator of Juvenal, but I find this a … Continue reading →

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Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, Lichfield

Posted on June 16, 2010 by

I was a bit short of sleep yesterday. Getting a good night’s sleep on a university campus is not that easy. Footballing and skateboarding were still going on just outside the window at 1 am, when I eventually dozed off; … Continue reading →

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Neglected Classics and Rasselas

Posted on May 22, 2010 by

There’s a dramatisation of The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow (Sunday May 22nd). Last year Radio 4’s Open Book programme had a feature in which various authors chose a favourite ‘neglected classic’. Listeners then voted … Continue reading →

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