Product Description
One of the most renowned authors of the eighteenth century, Samuel Johnson became a symbol of English national identity in the century following his death in 1784. Nicholas Hudson examines his contribution to the creation of the modern English identity, focusing on his attitudes towards class, feminism, party politics, the public sphere, nationalism, and imperialism. This new view of Johnson reflects the nature of English nationhood. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; ... Read more

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This biography, first published in 1974 and reissued with a new preface by the author, is about every aspect of Samuel Johnson: a discussion of ideas, a criticism of his writing, an historical placing of the man within the social and intellectual landscape of his day. ... Read more

Product Description
Book by Samuel Johnson, published in 1775. The Journey was the result of a three-month trip to Scotland that Johnson took with James Boswell in 1773. It contains Johnson's descriptions of the customs, religion, education, trade, and agriculture of a society that was new to him. The account in Boswell's diary, published after Johnson's death as The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785), offers an intimate personal record of Johnson's behavior and conversation during the trip. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
In 1773 James Boswell (age 33) convinced his older friend Samuel Johnson (age 64) to go on a 4 month tour of Scotland. Boswell took on the role of tour guide and confidant introducing Johnson to the "lairds" and "chiefs" of Boswell's native Scotland. For Johnson, it was his first trip outside of England. They each wrote a travel book, with Johnson focusing on Scotland, and Boswell on Johnson.

Boswell's Tour is something of a literary breakthrough. At the time it was not considered good manners to be too specific about ones personal habits but Boswell often talks about seemingly mundane things that for a modern reader would seem normal in a travelogue but for the day was scandalous. Boswell repeated conversations with well known figures that didn't portray them in a glowing light and this resulted in years of tit-for-tat newspaper editorial attacks and defenses. Later editions would include letters, apologies and defenses. Today with all the personalities long dead it seems like a Hollywood tabloid. In the context of the times, Johnson and Boswell were seen by some critics as outsiders gatecrashing the establishment - Johnson was a provincial "hack" as one Londoner called him, and Boswell was Scottish, damning enough on its own, but with a personal reputation as a "rouge" (ladies man) and heavy drinker (demons that would follow him to the grave). However their reputations as towering figures of the Enlightenment would soon be solidified, further increasing the popularity of this book.

As a work of literature Boswell's account is warm and endearing. Johnson and Boswell are Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, respectively. Boswell at once mythologizes Johnson hanging on his every word, a great master who can say no falsehood, and at the same time makes him into a lovable blundering traveler. Certainly Charles Dickens' Mr. Pickwick of the Pickwick Papers was influenced by Boswell's Johnson. As travel literature Boswell's observations of Scottish life are valuable. Boswell had an excellent memory and kept a daily diary so we have very exact details of food and conversation, although Boswell did not think much of scenery or geography.

`Tour to the Hebrides` was a best-seller from its first publication and is still widely read. Its influence is probably hard to quantify, it was partly responsible for popularizing the English tradition of traveling to Scotland which would be so common among the literary set in the late 18th and 19th centuries (and to this day). One can only wonder how many travelers have re-traced Johnson and Boswell on a literary vacation. In the early 20th century a cache of Boswell's unpublished papers were discovered in a castle, among them the complete unedited manuscript of the Tour. This was published in 1936, it is substantially different, with many passages cut from the original restored, it is the better and recommended.

Johnson in the outer reaches of Scotland
Samuel Johnson had long planned a journey to the western islands of Scotland, but it wasn't until 1773, when he was already 64 years old, that he was able to realize the trip; his companion was James Boswell (who would write his own account of the excursion). The two men left Edinburgh in August and traveled up the east coast through Aberdeen, then west to Inverness and south to Loch Ness, before making it to Glenelg on the western coast. From there they explored a number of islands - Skye, Col, and Mull - before continuing to Inveray on the mainland, Glasgow, Auchinleck (Boswell's home), and finally back to Edinburgh. They were back in Edinburgh in November, about 100 days after they started.

The purpose of the trip was to sightsee, and to report on what was encountered. Ancient castles, ruined monasteries and churches, old forts all come under Johnson's scrutiny, as do various inns and innkeepers, lodgings, and numerous natural sights, including caves (in one they forgot to bring candles and couldn't explore it as thoroughly as they wished), Loch Ness (Johnson is amused at how inaccurately the loch has been described in the past), and much rugged and wild terrain (Johnson explored thoroughly some mountain crags that is impressive for a 64-year-old man to be attempting). The only thing missing are people; Johnson did not include much about the people he met, conversations held, etc. (Boswell, on the other hand, included much along those lines.) His view of Scotland and the Scots is often derogatory (he thinks the lack of trees on the western islands can be blamed on the "laziness" of the people in not planting them), but he is careful to include information about all sorts of Scottish customs and habits, from the use of silver at table to bagpipe playing. Many of his comments are of the political kind (immigration to America, the clans, the schools, laws), often in comparison to England. It's a fascinating travel book and reveals as much about Johnson as it does about Scotland.

With mule as transport
This book was my companion on my first trip to Norway, the origin in viking times of the settlement of much of Northern Scotland and the Hebrides. I was curious to know how the region looked in earlier times and, is always the case with the writing of Johnson and Boswell, was happily entertained. If one reads only one travel book then maybe this one is the right one--maybe Lawrence's 'Travels in Italy' is second on my list.

The Beauties of Boswell
Quite a while back I posted a review of the Oxford edition of Samuel Johnson's writings in which I included a short review of the Penguin edition of the Sctoland journey/journal. Reposting that review to the newest edition of the Oxford book, it occurred to me I ought to place this review where it belongs.

There is little with which one might compare these two wonderful pieces of writing today -- and yet to some extent they are, each in its own way, foundations upon which much of modern writing has been built. Johnson is here, if not at his finest, still nearing an apogee of clarity, lucidity and intellectual rigor. Boswell is making his initial foray into the published first-hand journal, written only half-a-thought out of the public eye, that would eventually lead him to write his enormous and enormously popular Life of Johnson.

Reading the two interlaced is an utter delight -- moving from the formality, grace and power of Johnson to the smaller, more intimate pleasures of Boswell gives one the feeling of having captured, in the adventurous peregrinations of these two inimitable characters, the very breadth and depth of eighteenth century English writing. (I must point out that the Penguin book does not print the two Journals in interlaced fashion, but with a little effort the reader can move between the two so as to get the efect of Johnson and Boswell speaking in turns on the same topology, if not always the same topic...)

To love and admire Johnson, but not appreciate the brilliant, even if much different, stylistic inventions of Boswell seems to me somewhat perverse. Certainly Boswell had his shortcomings, but half the joy of reading and 'knowing' Johnson and his circle comes from appreciating the little peccadilloes and foibles that each displayed in his turn--not the least the Great Cham, Johnson, himself. Having said that I hope I may be allowed one short comment on Frank Lynch's review below. While meaning no disrespect to Frank it seems odd to me that he would note that Johnson does not comment on conversations that Boswell took as very important. Johnson knew of Boswell's journals as they were being written and encouraged Boswell to publish them. Moreover, Johnson was writing a topographical piece and not the more intimate "Travels with the Great Cham" journal that Boswell was writing.

In the long run, that Boswell found these conversations important is what delights us -- his ability to possess and bring weight to the smallness of life contrasts wonderfully with Johnson's ability to enlarge and ennoble life -- and the reflection is an interesting one when we find some of the Great Cham's noble thoughts somewhat bitterly missing the mark while Boswell's little thoughts can roll about one's mind for a very long time.

I cannot think of either of these two men that I don't see Thomas Rowlandson's wonderful caricature of the two walking arm in arm -- the older man a head taller, wagging his finger and pontificating casually and brilliantly on some weighty matter, and the other rolling along beside him smiling with sweet admiration and pride of association. To read Johnson and bypass Boswell, is to find one great treasure and forsake another.

If I must add one small quibble it is that the notes to the Penguin edition seem rather eccentric -- more the product of a dyspeptic travel writer than a Johnsonian scholar.

Johnson observes the passing of an age in Scotland
Boswell persuaded Johnson, almost age 64, to visit the highlands ofScotland with him in August, 1773.Both Boswell and Johnson wrote smallbooks about it.Johnson's view, both in his letters to Hester Thrale andin this book, was as a social scientist cum historian, taking a clinicalexamination of the changes that were occurring in Scotland after the Union. Where Boswell's volume (sometimes paired with Johnson's) tends to focus ondialogs with Johnson, Johnson discusses the decaying of the clan structure,emigration, assimilation into the Union...Johnson is very careful as hedescribes what he sees, carefully measuring distances and relating hisobservations to historical context.

This review may appear with othereditions, but the Oxford edition, edited by Fleeman, is a very thorough anddetailed edition for the specialist.For the specialist, it's worth therelatively high price.Fleeman provides detailed notes, and appendices onthe the various early editions, cancelled sheets, clans structures, etc. If you are a serious reader of Johnson, as I am, this is the edition tohave.

If you are -not- a serious reader, then you would do well to buythe penguin paperback, which combines Johnson's and Boswell's volumes.Thetwo books are fascinating to read in tandem, and it's revealing aboutBoswell that Johnson doesn't even mention conversations which meant so muchto Boswell.In addition, the notes in the Penguin edition (by Peter Levi)are also very helpful.

The -third- part of the story, however --Johnson's letters to Hester Thrale while J & B were traveling -- arenot included in any current edition that I know of.I suspect we will haveto wait for an electronic version in order to be able to compare all threeresources at once. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

If publisher has to apologize for quality of reprint I don't need.
Let it be known that Kessinger Publishing sourced this reprint from Google Books.Every page has Google printed at the bottom.Why they chose this particular edition to reprint eludes me.It isn't the most complete or a first edition or the most beautiful or cleanest scanned or superlative in any way. It has all the faults of the original scan such as underlined words, plus some defects of their own printing process added.Also the binding appears to be just glued together.

The publisher states that "This important reprint was made from an old and scarce book.Therefore, it my have defects such as missing pages, erroneous pagination, blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, marginalia and other issues beyond our control."This information should have been made available before purchase.

"...a faultless piece to see..."
With a small quote from Alexander himself as the title I clearly state my approval! His works are unlike anything I have read in early English Literature. His very original attitude and way of speaking his mind makes him who he is. A must read for any reader who wants to be entertained! ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Samuel Johnson (1846-1901) was an Anglican minister and historian renowned for his magisterial history of the Yoruba people. Born in Freetown in Sierra Leone and educated by the Church Missionary Society, Johnson was sent with his family to Idaban in Nigeria in 1857. He was ordained in 1880 and by 1897 had finished the manuscript for The History of the Yorubas. However the original publisher mysteriously misplaced the manuscript. After Johnson's death his brother, Dr Obadiah Johnson, recompiled the text from Samuel's notes. This volume, first published in 1921, contains that reconstructed edition. This pioneering volume brought together various oral and recorded accounts of Yoruba history, describing not only political history but also social customs, language and laws. Although recent analysis of the text has revealed some inaccuracies, this volume remains the standard reference for the history of the Yoruba people. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great service! Please keep it up going!
The comment that came with the book's advert was: NEW. Thus, I was and still exceedingly happy that the book (The History of the Yorubas) you sent to me via UPS is indeed NEW. Secondly, I am very surprised that this book (The History of the Yoruba) was shipped to me immediately, which made me get itwithin three to four days! Thank you very much. I really enjoy your customer service! Please keep it up going.

A classic work
The author of this classic work is not to be confused with Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the English essayist, poet, and lexicographer usually known as "Dr Johnson".This Samuel Johnson (1846-1901) was an Anglican vicar of African descent.He was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, but spent his adult life in Nigeria. His peace-efforts in the 1870s contributed to the eventual end of the Yoruba wars in 1886.

In 1880 Samuel Johnson became a deacon and was ordained a vicar in 1888.Claiming Yoruba ancestry, he was concerned that his people were losing their own history and completed the original manuscript of his history of the Yoruba people from his notes in 1897.Whether by accident or design, this completed manuscript was sadly lost.However, after his death, his brother, Dr Obadiah Johnson, produced this work from his notes.It was at last published in 1921.Unfortunately, Obadiah died in 1920 so neither he nor Samuel saw the finished product.

It remains a key resource for the understanding of Yoruba history.

Great Book
There are considerably information about Yoruba's History and Religion.
If you are a priest or worshipper of Orixa , you need to buy this book.

Monumentof the Age to come!
This book is one of the foundation materials that informs the depth of the Omoluabi Matrix. Inbetween the pages of this volume we can trace the concept of Omoluabi civilzation which is the single factor responsible for the continued survival and advancement of our race. Ignoring the obvious Oyo bias of the author this resource material alongside others, details the incontrovertible evidence of an ancient African civilization on which the principles of democracy could rest. It details the cultural concepts that helped to overcome the colonial beast and gives a name to terrorism in ancient times. The only draw back is that the book did not investigate the insidious root of the word "Yoruba" - an abusive 18th century coinage of ancient terrorists. The original Olukumi tag would have furthered the cause of our national reawakening.

Yoruba History
I remember reading this book when I was in secondary school over 25 years ago and I can still recall how amazed I was to discover that we Yorubas had organized govermental inititutions.I found out why we as a people are so defragmented, the origin of the Yoruba people and different tribes, the power and might of various tribal empires.I don't think there is another book that has this amount of detail regarding the Yoruba people.Now I need a copy for my library and is now difficult to get hold of. ... Read more

Product Description
In 2009 Dr Samuel Johnson made a surprise re-emergence from eighteenth century retirement and began Twittering. It proved the perfect vehicle for his acerbic, aphoristic wit and he has quickly become the darling of the site. "The Guardian" calls him the 'greatest' thing on Twitter and the Telegraph dubs him its 'star'. Our gouty man of letters finds the modern world in a parlous state. It is peopled with fools like 'Raisin-ey'd Tyrant Mister Nick Griffin' and "Baboon-Slayer, Fop, Macaroni, Dandy & Folderol, Mister AA Gill'. His attempts to negotiate a path through the vagaries of modern life do not fare well either - for instance, on a trip to "Mister Liberty's blast'd Haberdashery', upon finding 'all else clad as Lumber-Jacks, I left thwart'd & alone...unwilling to dress as an unmanly Pastiche of Mister Cobain'. In his "Dictionary of Modern Life", our gouty man of letters takes a wickedly funny look at all things modern. From "Top Gear" and the "Daily Mail" to "Dubstep" and "Celebrity Big Brother", nothing escapes his sardonic gaze. ... Read more

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,.. .. ..,nsgr; LU ... -...... ·~R,.~~ . .,~"'W:It"""""b_ 'r9.~~"'" J ... Dca....- aye AN E s s A y ON THE LIFE AND GENIUS o }' SAM U E L J O!-1 N SON, LL. D W HEN the forks of a great.. riter, . vho has Lcqucathed to pofteriry a jailing legacy, are prefcnted to the vodd, it is natural~y ex petted, tbat fonlc account of his life iliould accor!1p~H1y the edi[ioll. Tbe Reau~r vilhes to k!10)' ~s lTIuch ~s oolllb10 1 of the .Iuthor. 1-he circun1!1ances that attended him, the features of h!3 pri'ate chaf~ C1er, h is con vcrfatiol1, and the lTIC .. lll s by w h i<.:h he 1"0[,': to ernll:cnce, b~ cn;ne the fa .. . vounte

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the difficult to read text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org ... Read more

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This volume of criticism seeks to refresh discussion of Samuel Johnson. ... Read more