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Tag Archives: samuel johnson
Boswell and Johnson’s enjoyable tour marred by irritating annotator
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
Posted in books, landscape
Tagged Hebrides, James Boswell, Peter Levi, samuel johnson, Scotland
2 Comments
The Female Quixote: or the Adventures of Arabella by Charlotte Lennox
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
Dr. Johnson’s House and Bill Bryson at Guildhall
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
Posted in archaeology/history, books, museums & galleries, science
Tagged Bill Bryson, Gresham College, Guildhall, Royal Society, samuel johnson, science
2 Comments
Dr Johnson & Mrs Thrale’s Tour in North Wales 1774
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
Posted in archaeology/history, books, landscape
Tagged hester piozzi, hester thrale, samuel johnson, wales
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Translations of elderly literature – and place-names
‘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
Posted in archaeology/history, books, landscape
Tagged candide, language, picaresque novels, place-names, rasselas, samuel johnson, thomas more, utopia, voltaire
1 Comment
Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, Lichfield
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
Posted in archaeology/history, books, museums & galleries
Tagged lichfield, samuel johnson, samuel johnson birthplace museum, tea
1 Comment
Neglected Classics and Rasselas
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