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London: A Poem
Samuel Johnson
£4.50 + P&P

London was written by Johnson in 1738, the year after he moved from his home city of Lichfield, Staffordshire, to the capital. As was the fashion, the poem is an imitation of a classical work, Juvenal's Third Satire. While Juvenal originally wrote on the corruption of ancient Rome, Johnson's poem speaks of the vices of eighteenth-century London. Although he would become the quintessential Londoner, the hardships of his early years there can be seen as he writes of the danger and heartlessness of the city, of how real worth is despised while criminals walk free.

Grant me, kind Heaven, to find some happier Place,
Where Honesty and Sense are no Disgrace ...

writes the protagonist, as he determines to leave London ' To breathe in distant Fields a purer Air.'

Published by Thomas Harmsworth Publishing Company, 1996
15 x 21cm
Paperback, 11 pages
ISBN: 0 948807 35 0