Life of Samuel Johnson
Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail. This irrepressible Scotsman was 'always studying human nature and making experiments', and the marvelously vivacious Journals he wrote daily furnished him with first-rate material when he came to write his biography. The result is a masterpiece that brims over with wit, anecdote and originality. Hailed by Macaulay as the best biography ever written and by Carlyle as a book 'beyond any other product of the eighteenth century', The Life of Samuel Johnson today continues to enjoy its status as a classic of the language.
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What Hacker News says
- Aren't there other great biographies and biographers as interesting as well including the following:
-James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
-Carl Sandburgs 3 or 4 volume biography of Lincoln.
- Isaac Deutscher's massive biography of Trotsky.(The Prophet).
-Duff Cooper's Talleyrand.
-Tom Cliffs 3 volume biography of Lenin.
- William Taubman biographies of Khrushchev and Gorbachev.
-William Manchester biography of General MacArthur.(American Caesar)
-Barbara Tuchman biography of General Stilwell. (Stillwell and the American Experience in China.)
-Anthony Burgess, Biography of Shakespeare.
- > After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”
—James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
- Thanks and I have heard the same it's much like the proper old sources like Herodotus or Josephus in that you are reading through a certain lense with artistic license. I got through the life of Samuel Johnson and there are definitely stylistic similarities from the era. I also got into The 12 Rulers of Byzantium back in the early podcast days so I hope that helps. Best part so far was descriptions of the old Roman footprint and what was there "now" as in 1780ish and needing to make another translation to the present. My how the times have changed(ish;)
- Ever read Boswell's life of Samuel Johnson? Samuel Johnson was a poet, which was about as close as you could be to a rock star in terms of popular culture fame in the 18th century.
- I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus.'
— James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
- The "I refute it thus" is one of the funniest episodes in the history of philosophy (next to Diogenes plucked chicken)
For the unaware:
> “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, ‘I refute it thus.'”(Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, quoted from Wikipedia.)
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