Lives of the Poets

by Samuel Johnson

Overview

Reproduction of the original: Lives of the Poets by Samuel Johnson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783732695256
Publisher:	Outlook Verlag
Publication date:	05/23/2018
Pages:	402
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Emeritus Fellow of Balliol and former Professor of English at the University of Oxford, Roger Lonsdale is the editor of The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse (1987).

Table of Contents

Volume OneSHORT TITLESINTRODUCTIONCowleyDenhamMiltonCOMMENTARY
Volume TwoButlerRochesterRoscommonOtwayWallerPomfretDorsetStepneyJ. PhilipsWalshDrydenSmithDukeKingSpratHalifaxParnellGarthRoweCOMMENTARY
Volume ThreeHughesSheffieldPriorCongreveBlackmoreFentonGayGranvilleYaldenTickellHammondSomervileSavageSwiftBroomeCOMMENTARY
Volume 4PopePittThomsonWattsA. PhilipsWestCollinsDyerShenstoneYoungMalletAkensideGrayLytteltonCOMMENTARYAPPENDIX A. Sequences of Johnson's PoetsAPPENDIX B. Some Early Periodical Reactions 1779-83APPENDIX C. Spelling and Capitalization in the Prefaces and Lives

Editorial Reviews

"It is quite simply a marvelous scholarly performance. Lonsdale had to deal with not easily legible manuscripts, with proofs in various stages, with the errors and inconsistencies of earlier editions.... But his greatest achievement is probably the commentaries on the poems.... When you consider that there were so many poets like Stepney, as well as major poets of whom, though much is known, more is still to be discovered, you might say that Lonsdale's labors have probably been more arduous than Johnson's, and must sometimes have been 'tedious and troublesome.' But the standard of modern Johnson scholarship is high, and these volumes will be regarded by Lonsdale's peers as monuments to a heroic achievement."—Frank Kermode, he New York Review of Books

"The majestic new Oxford edition of Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets,' edited by the eminent eighteenth-century scholar Roger Lonsdale, testifies to the rarity of what Johnson achieved.... This is literary criticism as valuable, as deserving of annotation and emendation, as the poetry it criticizes. This new, four-volume edition of the Lives helps to situate Johnson's work in a broader and deeper eighteenth-century context than ever before, shedding light on every facet of their composition and reception."—Adam Kirsch, The New Criterion

"Roger Lonsdale, an authority on the period, has published a tremendous four-volume scholarly text, with very full notes and an introduction which is a book in itself."—James Fenton—The Guardian

"For its combination of searching scholarship, organizatinoal design, and critical flair, Lonsdale's 'standard' edition of the Lives will be hard—impossible, I should think—to excel or displace." —Eighteenth-Century Life

From the Publisher