The Letters of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Collected and edited by GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL. In two volumes. 1892. Only a few of the letters are given in the editions of the complete works. In this edition the letters already given by Boswell in his Life are not reprinted.
Select Essays of Dr. Johnson. Edited by GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL. In two volumes. 1889. (Temple Library.) These Essays are chiefly from The Rambler and The Idler.
Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson. Selected and arranged by GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL. 1888. This consists of sayings on various subjects arranged alphabetically, with an interesting introduction.
The main authority for the life of Johnson is, of course, Boswell. His account is given in two books, the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., published in 1785, and the Life which followed in two volumes in 1791. {254} The best edition of the Life is that edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill in six volumes, one of which is given to the Tour to the Hebrides, published in 1887. No one who has worked on Johnson since that year can overstate his debt to this book or his gratitude to its author. The prettiest and pleasantest of all editions of Boswell is that known as Wright's Croker. It is a revision by J. Wright of the edition by J. W. Croker, and includes a collection of Johnsoniana. It consists of ten handy volumes, illustrated by many steel engravings, and first appeared in 1831.
The most important of the many accounts of Johnson left by other contemporaries are those given by Mrs. Thrale, Fanny Burney and his executor, Sir John Hawkins. Mrs. Thrale's is contained in a volume entitled Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL. D., during the last Twenty Years of his Life. By Hester Lynch Piozzi. It was first published in 1786. Fanny Burney's picture of him is to be found in her Diary and Letters, of which the best edition is that by Austin Dobson, 1904. Sir John Hawkins prefixed a Life of Johnson to the edition of his works which he brought out in 1787. Dr. Birkbeck Hill has reprinted a large collection of biographical matter drawn from a variety of sources in his two volumes of Johnsonian Miscellanies, 1897.
The critical studies of Johnson are of course innumerable. Among the best are Carlyle's, printed in his Works among the Miscellaneous Essays, Sir Leslie Stephen's volume in the "English Men of Letters" series, and Sir Walter Raleigh's Six Essays on Johnson. The Life written by Macaulay for the Encyclopedia Britannica and reprinted by Matthew Arnold in his edition of the Six Chief Lives must not be confused with the essay reprinted in the collected Essays.
Dr. Birkbeck Hill published in 1879 an edition of Boswell's correspondence with the Hon. A. Erskine, and of his Journal of a Tour to Corsica, reprinted from the original editions. Boswell's Letters to his and Gray's friend, the Rev. J. W. Temple, were first published in 1857.
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INDEX
(Principally of Persons known to Dr. Johnson, or mentioned in his Writings or Conversation)