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Students, scholars, and general readers alike will find the New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson deeply informed and appealingly written. Each newly commissioned chapter explores aspects of Johnson's writing and thought, including his ethical grasp of life, his views of language, the roots of his ideas in Renaissance humanism, and his skeptical-humane style. Among the themes engaged are history, disability, gender, politics, race, slavery, Johnson's representation in art, and the significance of the Yale Edition. Works discussed include Johnson's poetry and fiction, his moral essays and political tracts, his Shakespeare edition and Dictionary, and his critical, biographical, and travel writing. A narrated Further Reading provides an informative guide to the study of Johnson, and a substantial Introduction highlights how his literary practice, philosophical values, and life experience provide a challenge to readers new and established. Through fresh, integrated insights, this authoritative guide reveals the surprising contemporaneity of Johnson's thought.
List of contents
Introduction: contemporary Johnson Greg Clingham; 1. Johnson, ethics, and living Min Wild; 2. Johnson and the essay Philip Smallwood; 3. Johnson and Renaissance humanism Anthony W. Lee; 4. Johnson and language Lynda Mugglestone; 5. Johnson and British historiography Martine W. Brownley; 6. Johnson and fiction Freya Johnston; 7. Johnson and gender Samara Anne Cahill; 8. Johnson, race, and slavery Nicholas Hudson; 9. Johnson's politics Clement Hawes; 10. Johnson's poetry John Richetti; 11. Johnson's editions of Shakespeare Tom Mason; 12. Johnson's Lives of the Poets: a guided tour Fred Parker; 13. Johnson as biographer Leo Damrosch; 14. Johnson and travel Anne M. Thell; 15. Johnson and disability Paul Kelleher; 16. Representing Johnson in life and after Heather McPherson; 17. Johnson among the scholars Robert De Maria, Jr.
About the author
Greg Clingham is emeritus Professor of English at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, and a Life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of fourteen books and numerous essays on Johnson, Dryden, Boswell, Lady Anne Barnard, Sir George Macartney, memory, historiography, orientalism, translation, archives, and the history of the book. He has been awarded fellowships by the NEH, ASECS, the Houghton Library, Harvard, the Beinecke Library, Yale, St. Edmund's College, Cambridge, the Bogliasco Foundation, and St. Andrews University. Between 1996 and 2018 Dr Clingham was director of Bucknell University Press. Presently he is editor of the series 18th-Century Moments. Dr Clingham's contribution to eighteenth century studies is recognised in A Clubbable Man: Essays on Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture in Honor of Greg Clingham (2022).
