Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets - 9780199284801

Samuel Johnson's Lives of the PoetsVolume II\nAuthor(s): Roger Lonsdale\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Oxford University Press\nISBN-13: 9780199284801, 978-0199284801\nSynopsis\nJohnson himself wrote in 1782: 'I know not that I have written any thing more generally commended than the Lives of the Poets'. Always recognized as a major biographical and critical achievement, Samuel Johnson's last literary project is also one of his most readable and entertaining, written with characteristic eloquence and conviction, and at times with combative trenchancy.\n\nJohnson's fifty-two biographies constitute a detailed survey of English poetry from the early seventeenth century down to his own time, with extended discussions of Cowley, Milton, Waller, Dryden, Addison, Prior, Swift, Pope, and Gray. The Lives also include Johnson's memorable biography of the enigmatic Richard Savage [tel], the friend of his own early years in London.\n\nRoger Lonsda.