Johnson on Savage: The Life of Mr Richard Savage by Samuel Johnson

скачать книгу бесплатно

Johnson on Savage: The Life of Mr Richard Savage by Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson

Richard Holmes

Lives that Never Grow OldPart of a radical series –edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Johnson’s book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive.When he first came to London, young Samuel Johnson was befriended by the flamboyant poet, playwright and blackmailer, Richard Savage. Walking the backstreets at night, he learned Savage’s extraordinary story – supposedly persecuted by a ‘cruel mother’, sentenced to death for a murder in a brothel, appointed Volunteer Poet Laureate to the Queen, and finally broken and outcast.With this moving and intimate account, Johnson created a brilliant black comedy of 18th-century Grub Street which revolutionised English biography by its psychological realism. Yet Savage’s destructive charm and delusions of grandeur sometimes even threatened to entangle Johnson himself.

CLASSIC BIOGRAPHIES EDITED BY RICHARD HOLMES

Defoe on Sheppard and Wild Johnson on Savage Godwin on Wolhtonecraft Southey on Nelson Gilchrist on Blake Scott on Zelide

JOHNSON ON SAVAGE

An Account of the Life of

Mr. Richard Savage, Son of

the Earl Rivers

by

Samuel Johnson, LL.D

With three essays on Biography

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

RICHARD HOLMES

HARPER PERENNIAL

London, New York, Toronto and Sydney

CONTENTS

Cover (#u25388e02-d108-5a5a-969e-f96f49b60999)

Title Page (#u36d29f40-3047-5fa1-a07e-592a35cd958f)

Introduction by Richard Holmes (#u01f446e9-ea46-58cf-9464-aa6feb94a7e4)

Select Chronology (#uea2d26d6-1552-5b79-92b4-dec07770a91a)

An Account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers (#u470dcf5c-7a15-5cd9-be54-6b380bffa560)

The Rambler, No. 60: Biography (#ud84d2f93-ff89-50a8-aaa6-4e9beaf59862)

The Idler, No. 84: Autobiography (#u4a1a1a50-315d-550b-a811-98b11ed4b29f)

The Idler, No. 102: Literary Biography (#u7a716ff3-67dd-52cf-8503-c405494e15b7)

Further Reading (#u94e1b63b-2619-5e16-91ee-2ebddff58127)

Index (#u73f7207e-7d6d-55f8-b72a-02250931313f)

Copyright

About the Publisher