Reading Samuel Johnson

Reading Dr Johnson contributes to the field of Reception Studies by examining how Samuel Johnson was later read and assimilated by later writers. The writers range from James Boswell and Jane Austen to Lord Byron and Samuel Beckett. The book focuses as much on these writers as on Johnson himself. It also examines Johnson’s own self-reading and how later writers responded to, ignored or over-wrote his own self-imaging. This is the first trans-historical analysis of Samuel Johnson over an extended timeframe.The book sheds light on how writers bring their own unique creative energies, preoccupations and cultural affiliations to the reading experience. Writers find their own space, in part, through their responses to other writers. Rewriting Johnson involved writers deploying very different means, involving letters, essays, biographical representations, poetry, fiction and editorial practice. The book will seek to enhance our understanding of how a later writer’s reception of a precursor reciprocally helps shape their own writing agenda and self-positioning in the literary canon.