"The Personal History of Samuel Johnson" by Christopher Hibbert

 Samuel Johnson left Pembroke College without a degree (much later in life he received an honorary LLD and is therefore known as Doctor Johnson) and did hack-work in Fleet Street in the 1740s and 1750s. He is most remembered for compiling an early English dictionary and for the biography written by Boswell. He was the centre of the coffee-house culture of the time and was often to be found at a coffee house or a tavern engaged in ferocious argumentation with his friends, who included the actor David Garrick (a friend from Lichfield whom Johnson had once taught) and the novelist and playwright Oliver Goldsmith. 

The biography shows Johnson to have been a domineering boor. He was arrogant and often insulted those who disagreed with him. He was greedy, eating up to sixteen peaches a day and drinking up to twenty-five cups of tea at a sitting. He frequently sponged off his friends; he rarely showed gratitude and seems to have taken the attitude that they were lucky to pay for the pleasure of his company. Nevertheless, they seemed to adore him for his eloquence and (sometimes rather heavy-handed) wit; he was a conversational genius (but at the same time a prima donna). 

He does seem to have suffered from something that might be akin to bipolar syndrome and might have similarities with Tourettes (he constantly fidgeted although he seems to have been in control of his language).

This a well-written warts-and-all portrait of a rather unpleasant man. 

Quoted from Johnson:

• "Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves." (C 7)

Quotes from the book:

• "Sam's knowledge was not gained easily, for he was incorrigibly, constitutionally lazy." (C 1)
• "The impression of idiocy he made upon some strangers was emphasised by his convulsive restlessness." (C 1)
• "Edward Cave ... was ... the son of a cobbler, he had been expelled from Rugby Grammar School for robbing the headmaster's wife's hen-roost." (C 2)
• "He had never liked vapid women with no opinions of their own; they had softness, he agreed, but so had pillows. Being married to such a sleepy-souled woman would be just like playing at cards for nothing. Honeysuckle wives were, after all, creepers at best, and commonly destroyed the trees they so tenderly clung to." (C 2)
• "He delighted in the use of difficult or antiquated words." (C 3)
• "He enjoyed being in a coach because he was assured of companionship there, the other passengers were shut in  with him and could not escape as they could out of a room." (C 10)
• "He strongly denied that some scoundrels made a lot of money by begging; the trade was far too overstocked for that." (C 13)
• "When asked if he did not really think he would start just in the way that Garrick did if he saw a ghost himself, Johnson had immediately replied, 'I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost'." (C 14)

August 2021; 315 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God