Andrew O'Hagan on Dr. Samuel Johnson

There is an excellent article by Andrew O'Hagan in the New York Review of Books on Samuel Johnson and the recent biographies about him.

The same article is also available on line:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23111

I found it through Arts & Letters Daily.

Robert

Thanks to you both. I read the biography by Peter Martin last June, but had no time to write a review yet. (Probably too late now.) I enjoyed it mightily. He's much easier to read than Boswell, whatever purists might say. I'm eager to discover—tonight—what the NYRB article says about it.

I read this and thought Jeffrey Myers' book, covered in the review, was typical postmodern oversexed nonsense. W. Jackson Bate disposed with the sallacious gossip 40 years ago in his excellent biography. Also see here: http://newrambler.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/johnsons-detractors/

I just finished reading Samuel Johnson: A Life by the recently deceased David Nokes. I'm just beginning to read Samuel Johnson: The Struggle by Jeffrey Meyers. After that, I want to read Peter Martin's book, Samuel Johnson: A Biography. Once I've read all three books, I will compare them with W. Jackson Bate's book, and see if I share your opinion of modern biographers of Samuel Johsnon.

That will be very interesting if you can share your comparisons, moibibliomaniac. For my part, I finally posted a review of Martin's biography, if you are interested. See here.