Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Samuel Johnson
-
Standard Name: Johnson, Samuel
Used Form: Dr Johnson
Arriving in eighteenth-century London as one more young literary hopeful from the provinces, SJ
achieved such a name for himself as an arbiter of poetry, of morality (through his Rambler and other periodical essays and his prose fiction Rasselas), of the language (the Dictionary), and of the literary canon (his edition of Shakespeare
and the Lives of the English Poets) that literary history has often typecast him as hidebound and authoritarian. This idea has been facilitated by his ill-mannered conversational dominance in his late years and by the portrait of him drawn by the hero-worshipping Boswell
. In fact he was remarkable for his era in seeing literature as a career open to the talented without regard to gender. From his early-established friendships with Elizabeth Carter
and Charlotte Lennox
to his mentorship of Hester Thrale
, Frances Burney
, and (albeit less concentratedly) of Mary Wollstonecraft
and Henrietta Battier
, it was seldom that he crossed the path of a woman writer without friendly and relatively egalitarian encouragement.
Johnson
wrote to Samuel Richardson
to enlist his support for AW
in her plan to compile a dictionary of philosophical, that is scientific, terms.
Johnson, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Redford, Bruce, The Hyde Edition, Princeton University Press, 1992–1994, 5 vols.
1: 79-80
Textual Production
Elizabeth Jenkins
EJ
's next novels were Doubtful Joy, 1935, The Phoenix Nest, 1936, Robert and Helen, 1944, and Young Enthusiasts, 1947 (titled from Samuel Johnson
's description of the ambitious young scholar...
Textual Production
Mary Masters
She had been writing and gathering the material here for at least ten years. The volume was printed for the Author, and dedicated to Lord Burlington
(who subscribed for eight copies). Its publication was...
Textual Production
Elizabeth Heyrick
EH
published Familiar Letters Addressed to Children and Young Persons of the Middle Ranks, with a quotation from Johnson
's Rambler on the title-page.
Heyrick, Elizabeth. Familiar Letters Addressed to Children and Young Persons of the Middle Ranks. Darton, Harvey and Darton, 1811.
title-page
Textual Production
Anna Williams
The Gentleman's Magazine published proposals, written for AW
by Samuel Johnson
, for a miscellany or collection of poems and essays which would include her own work along with some pieces by other people.
Larsen, Lyle. Dr. Johnson’s Household. Archon Books, 1985.
11-12, 16-17, 121
Textual Production
Harriet Corp
She quoted Johnson
on her title-page (on the value and usefulness of familiar histories), and acknowledged her sex in the preface. The book is now rare in both its first edition and the second (published...
Textual Production
Jane Johnson
Her letters to her children are charming, though she seems to have encouraged the kind of rivalry among them which Samuel Johnson
deplored. In November 1753, when Robert was eight, she wrote to him: I...
Textual Production
P. D. James
The title emerged from a remark of Samuel Johnson
about reaching the age of seventy-seven.
James, P. D. Time to Be in Earnest. Faber and Faber, 1999.
This bears no relation to Susanna Haswell Rowson
's Rebecca; or, The Fille de Chambre, 1792. It sounds, however, like a...
Textual Production
Hannah More
HM
published her first poem, the ballad Sir Eldred of the Bower, revised with the help of Samuel Johnson
. It was printed with another poem, The Bleeding Rock, bearing the date of...
Textual Production
Hester Mulso Chapone
Hester Mulso (later HMC
) contributed four brief letters from imaginary, high-society correspondents to the tenth number of Samuel Johnson
's Rambler.
Johnson, Samuel. The Rambler. Editors Bate, Walter Jackson and Albrecht B. Strauss, Yale, Yale University Press, 1969, 3 vols.
1: 51-4
Textual Production
Ann Hatton
The dedication, to Mrs Carsgill
of Holme Lodge, Northumberland, mentions past discussions with her on the topic of the passions, and cites Johnson
's Life of Savage to prove their violence.
Hatton, Ann. Deeds of the Olden Time. A. K. Newman, 1826.
prelims
Textual Production
Virginia Woolf
Later reprints often appeared as The Common Reader, First Series. VW
took her title from a formulation of Samuel Johnson
's, meaning that non-specialist, non-academic reader to whose taste, said Johnson, he was always...
Textual Production
Frances Reynolds
Most . . . but not all
Hill, George Birkbeck, editor. Johnsonian Miscellanies. Clarendon Press, 1897, 2 vols.
1: xi
of FR
's Recollections of Dr. Johnson was printed by John Wilson Croker
in his edition of Boswell
's Life of Samuel Johnson, as one...
Textual Production
Barbara Hofland
BH
published The Merchant's Widow and her Family. A Novel, with a title-page quotation from Samuel Johnson
and a date of 1814.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
