Designing the Life of Johnson (Lyell Lectures in Bibliography) - Hardcover

Redford, Bruce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198187394 ISBN 13: 9780198187394

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2002

Synopsis

What makes a biographical masterpiece? By decoding the manuscript of Boswell's Life of Johnson, this innovative study reveals the methods and the models that shaped his monumental portrait. The result is a more subtle, more vital assessment of Boswell the designer--and an enhanced awareness of biography's power to make life into art.

About this title

About the Author

Editor of the OUP/Princeton UP 5-volume edition of the Letters of Samuel Johnson, 1992-4; now editor of the Yale UP/Edinburgh UP edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson: An Edition of the Original Manuscript (vol. 2)

Review

"Redford is always in absolute control of his material: his readings and interpretations are perceptive and incisive, never strained or forced. The result is a wholly persuasive account of the 'textual labyrinth' out of which Boswell created his masterpiece.... [An] elegant and powerful book."--Times Literary Supplement

"A winning combination of scholarly strength and subtlety of insight which will make these gracefully written lectures a fitting companion to Redford's edition of the manuscript, and also the inescapable point of departure for anyone who wishes to understand how it was that Boswell designed The Life of Johnson."--Review of English Studies

"Redford made a careful study of Boswell's working manuscript in order to reveal just how carefully the biographer labored to produce his seemingly spontaneous and ingenuous work.... This book is accessible on almost every level and thus a fitting introduction to the world of Boswell scholarship. At the same time it is indispensable to those interested in the biographic genre, since Redford intends it as a comment on the nature of biography itself.... Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty."--Choice

"No one has made full use of the entire Boswellian archive: his complete working manuscript, notes, journals, letters, and proofs. This situation is happily rectified by Bruce Redford's Designing the Life of Johnson.... An invaluable and comprehensive overview of Boswell's biographical procedures and practices.... [This] is an impressive achievement. The availability of the entire working manuscript, and the author's skill in using this manuscript to describe Boswell's complex procedures, make the book the most useful overall study of the Life yet available."--Biography

"Embodies very high standards of scholarship and critical acumen.... Redford is able to bring intimate textual knowledge to bear on the subject.... Redford's study will enable scholars and critics to see this complex great work in its subtle particularities as never before.... This is a delicate, precise, yet bold and daring book."--Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0198187394
• ISBN 13: 9780198187394
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 198