Product desciption
The World In Thirtyeight Chapters Or Dr Johnsons Guide To Life Henry Hitchings by Henry Hitchings 9781509841936, 1509841938 instant download after payment.
'Hitchings is extremely good at unravelling Johnson’s most bullish assertions . . . lucid & empathetic, scholarly but lively. A model Johnsonian, in fact.' The Times
The World in 38 Chapters or Dr Johnson’s Guide to Life is a source of profound good sense about what it means to teach, read, write & travel. More than that, Henry Hitchings continually translates Samuel Johnson's experience of poverty, scorn, pain & madness into a rich understanding of how to be.
Samuel Johnson was a critic, an essayist, a poet & a biographer. He was also, famously, the compiler of the first good English dictionary, published in 1755. A polymath & a great conversationalist, his intellectual & social curiosity were boundless. Yet he was a deeply melancholy man, haunted by dark thoughts, sickness & a diseased imagination. In his own life, both public & private, he sought to choose a virtuous & prudent path, negotiating everyday hazards & temptations. His writings & aphorisms illuminate what it means to lead a life of integrity, & his experience, abundantly documented by him & by others (such as James Boswell & Hester Thrale), is a lesson in the art of regulating the mind & the body.
Johnson’s story touches on many themes that have enduring significance. He was, & remains, a perceptive commentator on the vanity of human wishes, the rewards & dangers of charity, the need to cultivate kindness, the complexities of family life (especially marriage), the effects of boredom & the fleeting nature of pleasure. He writes & speaks incisively & humanely about the ego, ambition, hypocrisy, fallibility & disorders of the mind, as well as the corrosive effects of obsession, the precariousness of fame & the skulduggery of the literary world.
Henry Hitchings wrote The Secret Life of Words & Who's Afraid of Jane Austen?
