J. D. Fleeman has left us a hefty 2-volume set of incredible value to some people, but perhaps not to many. It's an extremely comprehensive listing of various editions of Johnson's works, both as sets and isolated volumes. The date range is from original editions when Johnson lived (18th C), up to recent times. Some of what is here is surprising - - such listings of Johnson's Dictionary in foreign languages, which initially caused me surprise (but were understandable with more thought).

I have used it on occasion in placing bids on eBay (it has helped me understand editions such as a 1970's facsimile reprint of the 1st edition of Johnson's Dictionary), as well as when buying 19th C editions of his books over the Internet, and helped take some of the guesswork out of what I was purchasing. It's told me more about some of the editions I already own. It has also helped me anser questions from visitors to my Johnson website.

I imagine that this set is very valuable to the specialist, but I imagine that even the specialists would prefer to borrow it from their local library than to buy it. While this is a monumental achievement, and deserves all five of the stars I've given it, at $460 for the 2 volumes together, I think most people's uses for this would be limited.

The challenge of segregating Johnson's works into their themes and forms must have been daunting, but Greg Clingham and the several writers who contributed to this edition have done a marvelous job of providing an introduction to Johnson and his works. Chapters examine his poetry, his essays, his Dictionary, his attitudes towards religion, and women... This book will be appreciated by beginning and intermediate Johnsonians, and should be read.

Fascinating history of the witch trials from their beginning in the hands of two monks trying to 'civilize' relatively pagan regions like the Alps and Pyrenees until their peak at the time of the deaths of Galileo, Descartes, and Kepler, and the birth of Newton. One learns that the Swedish Cristina, who attracted Descartes to Stockholm as her philosophy teacher, put the end to the witch trials there, after her father had contributed to the world the Thirty Years War. A good starter for anyone interested in the intermittent decline of the influence of religion in the west as the enlightenment caught steam.

Before starting this book, I had begun reading the better known "Dr. Johnson's London" by Liza Picard. But as an American reader, I became frustrated. For example, Ms. Picard refers to prices in terms of "d." [6 d. etc.] I suppose that any British reader knows that the "d." stand for, but I was wondering, "Pound? Quid? Shilling?" Schwartz specifically explains that 4 farthings = 1 penny, which is abbreviated as "d."
Ms Picard is British, and assumes that the reader knows many other incidentals that American readers may not know. Half way through that book, I turned to this one instead. Perhaps because Richard Schwartz is American, his book is more accessible for "Yanks." His writing is lucid, yet this short book is crammed with fascinating details about 19th century English life. It includes such specifics as the fact that wigs were greased before being powdered, and that insects infested the wigs! There are countless other similarly specific details. For example, Schwartz is specific about what 19th century folk spent on various items, even comparing the prices of traveling by coach vs. wagon etc.
Now that I have finished reading this marvellous introduction to the era, I will go back and finish reading Picard's "Dr. Johnson's London" and will hopefully get more out of it.

No, Samuel Johnson did not write the first English Dictionary. Let's dispense with that up front. However, he did write an incredibly high quality one, the first high quality English Dictionary actually, and he did it practically singlehandedly. (For the details of the effort, please see "The Making of Johnson's Dictionary," by Reddick, also available here at Amazon.)

Johnson wrote his Dictionary at a time when people read Dictionaries, not just referred to them. Knowing that, Johnson pursued his goal of putting a stake in the ground as to the meaning of words while developing and promoting a point of view; he was very careful about the quotations he used to illustrate his words, and the choices he made have been the subject of numerous books.

Johnson knew, in writing a Dictionary, that any attempt to cement the language was due to failure, and he said as much in his famous Preface. However, he felt obliged to make an effort (heck, he'd already received some advance money, and had to make good!), and over the course of years produced a volume that reigned supreme until the advent of the Oxford English Dictionary.

(You may already be aware of amusing definitions found within, such as oats, pensioner, etc., but it would be a shame to let the amusement distract you from the achievement that this represents.)

McDermott has included both the 1st and 4th editions on this CD-ROM, thus providing the two major editions Johnson produced (other editions are either skeletons, sans quotations, or very similar to these here), and its presence on CD-ROM makes it mcuh handier than pulling two heavy volumes off the shelf (which would cost you thousands of dollars anyway). I only have two regrets, neither of which should stop you from buying this. One, the CD-ROM does not include Johnson's Preface (it is easily available in paperback Johnson anthologies, but the absence seems pointless). Two, unless I haven't figured the interface out, it's a bit clunky: words are not searchable, one must click sections open.

That being said, I am still very glad I have my copy, and I bought a second for my alma mater.

I have all of Tomarken's books. As a Johnson hobbyist, it encourages me to see how carefully Tomarken has studied his legacy. The last few books were about Johnson himself, but now Tomarken is using his quick wit and sharp intelligence to survey Johnson's legacy as it exists in criticism.

I think Tomarken would be the first to admit that all criticism competes with the work it studies; this work, then, has the difficult yet enviable task of contending with both the titan Johnson himself and the nearly equally titanic bulk of those who would review, praise, or belittle him.

Tomarken doesn't suffer fools glady, and the book is worth reading for no other reason than the facility with which he dispatches the ignorant, the ill-informed, and the insipid.

All in all, not really a book for the Harry Potter set, or even for the idiots who have admitted Alice Walker and E.L. Doctorow to the literary canon - rather, this is a a bonsai of a book, obsessively groomed, fanatically detailed, lovingly grown to maturity.

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I am so glad that this book is finally back in print. For many people, their exposure to Samuel Johnson is limited to the short witticisms, or the one line quotations in Bartlett's. There have been noteworthy efforts to go beyond this (and Stephen Daenckert's "The Quotable Johnson" is a good step in that direction, though of somewhat limited scope), but for me Curwen's "Johnson Sampler" is one of the best. (I'm partial to my web site, samueljohnson.com, but that's another story...)

Here's what Curwen does that is special. First, he doesn't hesitate to quote an entire paragraph or more when appropriate. In doing that, you're open to a specific train of thought; if the criterion were brevity, you'd never have seen Johnson's thinking. Second, Curwen arranges these into a dozen or so thematically-based chapters of 15-30 pages. This collation allows you to compare Johnson's thinking about specific subjects over time and in different lights.

The chapters are the major themes one finds when one spends a lot of time reading Johnson: reading & writing, teaching & learning, man as a social animal, etc. All in all, I think this is a handy volume to have.

I find this book very helpful in preparing for bible study and for the other teacher in Sunday school help them teach the lessons to the children.

One of the best, if not the best, biography I have read of Johnson. Fluent, original, a pleasure to read.

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Donald Greene's readings of Johnson's political behavior, and the pieces he wrote (including not just the pamphlets of the 1770's, but also the Parliamentary debates and early tracts) clarifies our understanding. Boswell just wasn't as thorough on these matters, nor was W. Jackson Bate. This book, simply speaking, is invaluable.