ABSTRACT
Samuel Johnson's oeuvre is more than the sum of his individual works; it is the record of a lifetime's assault on doubt, contradiction and confusion. In recent years the tendency has been to speak less of Johnson the jovial clubman, and seek instead for a deeper and more troubled individual, a quest usually involving study of Johnson's private and confessional works. It is customary to say that Johnson's background was not particularly auspicious, and that is true in a worldly sense. Johnson senior was in the book trade, in and around Lichfield, which was then quite a lively provincial centre. England took its cultural shading from the ecclesiastical map; and though Lichfield was not a very grand diocese, it had its share of intellectual vigour and a respectable niche in history. The life of his friend Richard Savage, which came out in 1744, is among the most remarkable productions of Johnson's entire career.
