Dr Johnson and Mr Savage

Informationen zum Autor Richard Holmes was born in London in 1945 and educated at Downside School and Churchill College, Cambridge. In 1974 his Shelley: The Pursuit won the Somerset Maugham Award and was described by Stephen Spender as ‘surely the best biography of Shelley ever written’. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was awarded an OBE in 1992 and the Biographers' Club Lifetime Services to Biography Prize in 2014. He lives in London and Norwich with the novelist Rose Tremain. Klappentext A classic reissue of Richard Holmes's brilliant book on Samuel Johnson's friendship with the poet Richard Savage, which won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Dr Johnson & Mr Savage is the story of a mysterious eighteenth-century friendship. Richard Savage was a poet, playwright and convicted murderer who roamed through the brothels and society salons of Augustan England creating a legend of poetic injustice. Strangest of all his achievements was the friendship he inspired in Samuel Johnson, then a young, unknown schoolmaster just arrived in London to seek his literary fortune. This puzzling intimacy helped to form Johnson's experience of the world and human passions, and led to his masterpiece The Life of Richard Savage, which revolutionized the art of biography and virtually invented the idea of the poet as a romantic, outcast figure. Richard Holmes gradually reconstructs this alliance, throwing suprising new light on the character of Dr Johnson. This extraordinary book also questions the very nature of life-writing and exposes the conflicts between friendship, truth and advocacy which the modern form has inherited. Zusammenfassung A classic reissue of Richard Holmes's brilliant book on Samuel Johnson's friendship with the poet Richard Savage! which won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography.

Product details

• Authors: Richard Holmes
• Publisher: Harper Perennial UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 15.08.2005
• EAN: 9780007204557
• ISBN: 978-0-00-720455-7
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 16 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; London, Greater London, History, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures, Autobiography: general, Memoirs, Autobiography: literary, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, Autobiography: writers, Literary companions, book reviews & guides, C 1700 To C 1800, HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs