Description
Book SynopsisAmbivalent about the disruption, perplexity, and variety apparent in the London of his day, Johnson was committed to the conventions of moral reflection and troubled by the pressure to adopt the perspective of the crowd and the language of social theory. This work explores the consequences of his ambivalence and his attempt to order the chaos.
Trade Review“Thomas Reinert has succeeded—while giving his many predecessors their due—both in saying entirely new things about Samuel Johnson and also in addressing in an original and stimulating way the question of what it is that changes in eighteenth-century Britain—what it is that gives that culture its particular ‘modernity.’”—Deidre Lynch, State University of New York at Buffalo
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. The Desire for Fame 18
2. Periodical Moralizing 46
3. The Vanity of Human Wishes 75
4. Exemplary Self-Sacrifice 89
5. Probability and Conjecture 122
Conclusion 139
Notes 163
Works Cited 183
Index 189
