Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson – serie

An ample and varied section of accessible essays by Samuel Johnson  This selection of the cream of the writing from volumes II to V of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson fills the largest remaining gap in easily available eighteenth-century texts for the student and general reader. The edition provides in popular form the amplest selection available of Johnson’s essays, ranging from his great moral pieces to the valuable essays on literary criticisms. The text is that of the authoritative Yale Edition and includes full annotation. An introduction by W. J. Bate provides a concise summary of the publication history of the essays and probes in detail the moral vision that pervades most of them.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

The surviving sermons of Samuel Johnson, presented in a scholarly edition for the first time  It has been known since the publication of pre-Boswellian biographies that Samuel Johnson wrote sermons that were preached by others. The twenty-eight that have survived are presented here in their first scholarly edition, with full explanations and textual notes. They include a hitherto unpublished manuscript sermon and the celebrated Convict’s Address to His Unhappy Brethren, written for the notorious forger Dr. William Dodd for delivery to his fellow prisoners on the eve of his execution at Newgate.  In the sermons one finds the famous Johnsonian rhetoric and logic applied to such subjects as marriage and friendship, the meaning of moral and physical evil, the need to adjust punishment so that it fits the crime, and the desirability of tradition in religion. Equally eloquent are Johnson’s indignant and fiery attacks on intellectual pride, “the vanity of human wishes,” perjury, defamation, fraud, skepticism, and infidelity.  In their introduction, the editors discuss the circumstances surrounding the composition, preaching, and publication of the sermons. Certain to interest students of Johnson’s thought, this volume should also appeal to those concerned with the development of English style and with the venerable and once admired English homiletical tradition.