Johnson: Selected Writings

A must purchase for fans of Samuel Johnson. The informed editor, Peter Martin, judiciously has selected portions from Dr. Johnson's wide written legacy and made them available in a convenient form for the modern reader. Mr. Martin allows his hero, Dr. Johnson, to speak for himself without cluttering this book with his own commentary and asides. (I do highly recommend Peter Martin's 2008 biography of Samuel Johnson, in which the editor of this book does give his commentary on the powerful life of the English man of letters.) I have read many books about Dr. Johnson: this one provided me with the handy opportunity to consider selections from his own writings that I had previously been aware of only indirectly, such as "Lives of the Poets" and "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia."

Well, if I've only given this four stars, and not five, it's not due to any failure of Samuel Johnson's. Everything in this book is fine. But the anthology published by Oxford (edited by Donald Greene) is decidedly better. The Oxford Anthology has twice as many of his essays, the Preface to Shakespeare is -complete-, not "From...", and the complete preface to the Dictionary; it also has his short fiction Rasselas (complete), as well as a sermon or two and some early examples of his biographies; the Vision of Theodore, Hermit of Tenerife.Honestly, I can't complain about ANY anthology of Johnson; and this will do you very well. But the Oxford Anthology will do you so much better.