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Scholar in Residence

We’re delighted to welcome Professor Sheila T. Cavanagh to Dr. Johnson’s House during June. Currently, Sheila is researching the history of the House’s past curators, using our institutional archives. Her findings will be displayed in an exhibition at the House in the summer. 
Sheila is Professor of English and Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Emory University. She is also past holder of the Masse-Martin/NEH Distinguished Teaching Professorship. Author of books on the works of Edmund Spenser and Lady Mary Wroth, she has also published widely in the fields of pedagogy and of Renaissance literature. She is equally prolific in the electronic realm, having directed the Emory Women Writers Resource Project since 1994 and editing the online Spenser Review. Currently, Sheila is Director of the World Shakespeare Project, an electronic alliance between Shakespearean practitioners, scholars and students in around the world. She has given several talks at Dr. Johnson’s House in the past and is undertaking this exhibition as part of her studies in Public History.

Researchers

Johnson was a prolific writer and has been the subject of numerous studies. Below is a selection of resources and literature relating to his life and works. It is not a comprehensive list and contains a mixture of general and academic works and websites.


Editions of Johnson’s Works

The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, ed. J. Middendorf et al., 18 vols. to date (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958 - ).

Johnson, S. A journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, ed. J. D. Fleeman, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).

Johnson, S. The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Work, ed. R. Lonsdale, 4 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 work that defined the English language, ed. J. Lynch (London: Atlantic Books, 2004).

Fleeman, D. A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson (2 vols, 2000).

Project Gutenbuerg has many of Johnson's texts online.

A scanned edition of Johnson's Dictionary is available at The Internet Archive.

Biographies of Johnson

Boswell, J. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., ed. G. B. Hill, rev. L. F. Powell, 6 vols. (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1934-64).

Piozzi, H. L. Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL. D. during the Last Twenty Years of His Life (1786), ed. Arthur Sherbo (1974).

Hawkins, J. The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D., ed. O M Brack, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009).

Bate, W. J., Samuel Johnson, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977).

Clifford, James L., Dictionary Johnson, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979).

DeMaria, R, The Life of Samuel Johnson: A Critical Biography  (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).

Wain, John, Samuel Johnson: A Biography (1976).

Meyers, J. Samuel Johnson: The Struggle, (New York: Basic Books, 2008).

Nokes, D. Samuel Johnson: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2010).

Martin, P. Samuel Johnson: A Biography (LondonL Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2008).

Wiltshire, J. Samuel Johnson in the Medical World: The Doctor and the Patient, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Clark, J. C. D., Samuel Johnson: Literature, Religion and English Cultural Politics from the Restoration to Romanticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

The Dictionary

Reddick, A. The Making of Johnson’s Dictionary 1746-1773, rev. edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Crystal, David, (ed.) Dr Johnson’s Dictionary (2005).

Hitchings, H. Dr Johnson’s Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book That Defined the World (2005).

Lynch, J. and A. McDermott (eds.), Anniversary Essays on Johnson’s “Dictionary” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

DeMaria, R. Johnson’s Dictionary and the Language of Learning, (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1986).

Folkenflik, R. Samuel Johnson, Biographer (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978).

Johnson's Circle

Boswell, J., London Journal 1762-1763, ed. Gordon Turnbull (London: Penguin Classics, 2010).

Holmes, R.  Dr Johnson and Mr Savage (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993).

Chisholm, K., Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson in the Company of Women, (London: Chatto & Windus, 2011).


Collections of Essays and other materials

Piozzi, H. L. Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs Piozzi) ed. K. C.  Balderston, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951).

Lynch, J. (ed.), Samuel Johnson in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Lynch, J. A Bibliography of Johnsonian Studies, 1986-1998 (New York: A M S Press, 2000).

Rogers, P. The Samuel Johnson Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996).

Clingham G., and P. Smallwood (eds.) Johnson after 300 Years, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Birkbeck Hill, G. (ed.), Johnsonian Miscellanies, 2 vols, (1897: reprinted 1966).

Wiltshire, J. The Making of Dr Johnson: Icon of Modern Culture, (Hastings: Helm Information, 2009).

Periodicals

The Age of Johnson, (ed. Jack Lynch) AMS Press Inc., (1987-ongoing)     

The New Rambler, Journal of the Johnson Society of London. Details can be found here.

Websites

Johnson's Dictionary Online

The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite (edited by Frank Lynch)

Eighteenth-Century Resouces (edited by Jack Lynch)

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum

The Boswell Book Festival and Boswell Trust

St Werburgh's Church, Derby

James Boswell Information Site

The Johnson Society of London

The Johnson Society of Lichfield

The Johnson Society of Australia

The Thrale family website

The Garret

Card index of library books at Dr Johnson's House

LondonShh. Small Historic Houses Link to London Shh website Accredited Museum