Product Description

Samuel Johnson's literary reputation rests on such a varied output that he defies easy description: poet, critic, lexicographer, travel writer, essayist, editor, and, thanks to his good friend Boswell, the subject of one of the most famous English biographies.
This volume celebrates Johnson's astonishing talent by selecting widely across the full range of his work. It includes "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes" among other poems, and many of his essays for the Rambler and Idler. The prefaces to his edition of Shakespeare and his famous Dictionary, together with samples from the texts, are given, as well as selections from A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, the Lives of the Poets, and Rasselas in its entirety. There is also a substantial representation of lesser-known prose, and of his poetry, letters, and journals.
This edition represents the single most comprehensive anthology of Johnson's works. With a new, modern package this is an invaluble classic to add to your collection.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98691 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 880 pages

About the Author
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The late Donald Greene was a Professor Emeritus of English, University of Southern California.

Customer Reviews

I Read Him For His Sentence Structure
I read Johnson in the same way that I read Jane Austen, for the pure joy--and the celebration--of their beautifully balanced sentences. Indeed, it's almost like playing Bach to perform these sentences as they mount into paragraphs. One walks away feeling that one's thinking apparatus has been lovingly oiled, buffed, spun and polished. In addition, there's the incredible range of this man's thinking to applaud as well. However, the problem for some people might be that the book in question, with its generous selection and its easy-on-the eye type size, is roughly the same dimensions as Johnson's brain, and probably a tad heavier, which mitigates against taking it out for a stroll stuffed into the back pocket for an occasional dip. Instead it should be installed in the bedroom or the bathroom or any room where it can be consulted in an on-again, off-again manner. I read the Rambler selections, the dictionary and the poetry in this way. What's good about Johnson is that his prose is like poetry--it can't be read through just once, but demands re-reading, and each time offers yet another prize for the effort. Funny that it all came from a grotesque hypocrite and snob who enjoyed bullying others and was none too clean about his shirt and linen. Finally, brilliant as he was, I have to disagree with Johnson when he says, at the beginning of his Rambler Essay "The Need for General Knowledge" "That wonder is the effect of ignorance has been often observed....Wonder is a pause of reason, a sudden cessation of the mental progress, which lasts only while the understanding is fixed upon some single idea, and is at an end when it recovers force enough to divide the subject into its parts, or mark the intermediate gradations from the first agent to the last consequence...." (pg. 222 this book). The more I understand Johnson and his times, his parts and his divisions, the more I am struck with wonder.

Johnson in His Own Write
This is undeniably the best anthology of Johnson currently available -- or for that matter that has ever been available under one cover. It outshines Penguin's much too abbreviated version and contains all the major items: a fine selection of the essays, several biographical pieces including the essential Soame Jenyns and Life of Savage, the prefaces to the Dictionary and to Shakespeare, a selection of prayers, some wonderful letters, etc.

Penguin had promised a selection of the Lives of the Poets (or Prefaces Biographical and Critical to be more accurate), but has yet to formally announce publication. There is but a small sampling of these wonderful and important essays in the Oxford edition here.

For the journey to Scotland (only excerpted here), I much prefer Penguin's complete edition of the Journey, which includes Boswell's Journal (but has the most eccentric annotation one might imagine -- more the product of a dyspeptic travel writer than a Johnsonian scholar). Reading Boswell and Johnson together is an utter delight -- moving from the formality, grace and power of Johnson to the smaller, more intimate pleasures of Boswell gives one the feeling of having captured, in the adventurous peregrinations of these two inimitable characters, the very breadth and depth of eighteenth century English writing.

To love and admire Johnson, but not appreciate the brilliant, even if much different, stylistic inventions of Boswell seems to me somewhat perverse. Certainly Boswell had his shortcomings, but half the joy of reading and 'knowing' Johnson and his circle comes from appreciating the little peccadilloes and foibles that each displayed in his turn--not the least the Great Cham, Johnson, himself. I cannot think of either of these two men that I don't see Thomas Rowlandson's wonderful caricature of the two walking arm in arm--the older man a head taller, wagging his finger and pontificating casually and brilliantly on some weighty matter, and the other rolling along beside him smiling with sweet admiration and pride of association. To read Johnson and bypass Boswell, is to find one great treasure and forsake another.

As Frank Lynch points out in the review below this edition is identical to the blue cover edition offered elsewhere on this site. (Although the lovely new Hogarth cover is a delightful addition, I bought a second copy thinking this was a new book with new content... I suppose I should also add that as the book is not new, neither is this review which you may find in its earlier incarnation under the listing for the blue cover edition.)

Get THIS anthology, not the Penguin.
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It's a bit of a misnomer to call this anthology "The Major Works," because the principle guiding the original selection (under a different title) was to provide a diverse sampling of what he'd written -- and included items which would never be considered "major works" (such as a Latin school exercise and letters). They are worth reading, but not "major works." That having been said, as an *anthology* of Johnson's writings, this is the one to get.
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Oxford's anthology of Samuel Johnson's writings is superior to Penguin's because it is more comprehensive, and displays more of his variety, as well as more of what he is known for. In comparison to the Penguin anthology, this collection includes all of Johnson's short fiction "Rasselas" (an excellent book -- read my review of it in the Penguin edition of Rasselas): Penguin will ask you to buy a separate copy of Rasselas on top of their anthology. In addition, Oxford's anthology offers extracts of "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland" (Penguin has a separate volume of that, although there it is complete and coupled with Boswell's companion piece).
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The Oxford anthology offers 40 periodic essays (Ramblers, Adventurers, & Idlers), a form for which he is well known; plus his prefaces to Shakespeare and the Dictionary; the major poems (chief among them "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes"); a sermon; an extract of a Parliamentarian debate; his Life of Boerhaave; his review of Soame Jenyn's "A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil," his political pamphlet "The Patriot," an extract from a law lecture, extracts from "The Lives of The Poets", some letters... At over 800 pages, this is very comprehensive.
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The late Donald Greene provided an excellent introduction and set of notes.
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Note, however, that this is essentially the same anthology Oxford has had in print for years (my first copy is 15 years old, and this is the third cover under which it's been published). The copyright indicates there have been some revisions to this 2000 edition, but they are not apparent. Very great wine in a brand new bottle.
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I still wish, however, that the content were re-thought with the new title. Including letters and odd bits was fine under old titles, but it seems to me that there are "major works" which are missing, at the expense of stray items. Too few of the biographies from "The Lives of the Poets" are complete, and "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland" deserves more space than its extract receives under a title "The Major Works." Perhaps an additional sermon or two is called for. These are quibbles: the content is fine, it's the title that's off.