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Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author.(Review)

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From: New Criterion
Date: 19990601
Author:Rawson, Claude

Lawrence Lipking Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author Harvard, 372, pages, $35

Lawrence Lipking's Samuel Johnson is not a conventional birth-to-death biography. It is entirely focused on the writings. "The Life of an Author," in this sense, is one in which biographical narration aids an understanding of the author's works, and which "passes over details that do not shed light on the work." It opens not with Johnson's birth, but with the famous letter to Chesterfield, written in 1755 when Johnson was in his forties. The great earl, having neglected the struggling ...

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