The World in Thirty-Eight Chapters or Dr Johnson’s Guide to Life

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Part portrait of Britain’s greatest man of letters, part guide to life, this is a witty and erudite re-evaluation of Dr Johnson’s enduring importance and relevance. Samuel Johnson was a critic, an essayist, a poet, a biographer and a great conversationalist. He was also, famously, the compiler of the first good English dictionary, published in 1755. He was, and remains, a perceptive commentator on the vanity of human wishes, the need to cultivate kindness, the complexities of family life (especially marriage), the effects of boredom and the fleeting nature of pleasure. He writes incisively and humanely about ambition, hypocrisy, fallibility and disorders of the mind, and of the corrosive effects of obsession and the precariousness of fame. He is a source of profound good sense about what it means to teach, read, write and travel. More than that, though, he continually translates his experience of poverty, scorn, pain and madness into a rich understanding of how to be.‘A sprightly companion and guide, full of enjoyable surprises and learned digressions even for those who think they know all there is to know about the great man.’ Christopher Hart, Literary Review‘Hitchings is extremely good at unravelling Johnson’s most bullish assertions . . . lucid and empathetic, scholarly but lively. A model Johnsonian, in fact.’ The Times‘Beguiling and intelligent . . . Unashamedly opinionated and funny . . . This is a delightful book.’ Jane Darcy, The Times Literary Supplement