The 1998 annual seminar for the Johnson Society will be held on Saturday, June 20, at the English Speaking Union, 146 WEST Toorak Road (where the Christmas party was held).
The day will begin with registration at 9.30. Six papers will be delivered, there will be a panel discussion as well as other entertainments and the event will be fully catered, including morning and afternoon teas. Dinner will be served buffet style.
One of our speakers will be American member Genny Gebhardt Kanning, from Seattle, who will talk about the physical Johnson, against a background of his prize fighter Uncle Andrew, and the British boxing scene of the 18th Century. Something completely different!
The other papers, too, promise the usual mix of learning and entertainment.
The all-inclusive fee for the whole seminar program will be $55 for members
and $65 for non-members). For those who wish to attend only the seminar
itself, the
charge will be $40 and for the dinner only, $35. If you intend to come
to the seminar, please contact the
secretary. We would appreciate getting your applications as soon as
possible so catering arrangements can be completed.
Click here for the full program, timetable and registration form
Notes from the Western Idler (our Perth correspondent John Byrne)
In January, I had the pleasure of entertaining a distinguished Boswellian, Sheriff Roger Craik, QC. The position of Sheriff in the Scottish legal system would be the equivalent of our District Court Judge. Roger is the author of James Boswell (1740-1795); the Scottish Perspective, published by The Faculty of Advocates and HMSO in Edinburgh in 1994. We spent a wonderful afternoon, discussing matters Boswellian, looking over my library and, later, tasting some Western Australian wines. (Scotsmen love good claret).
Roger was kind enough to inscribe my copy of his earlier work The Advocates' Library; 300 years of a National Institution 16898-1989 which he wrote in collaboration with John St Claire.
The Advocates' Library is one of the truly great libraries of Europe. Without it the Scottish Enlightenment in the latter part of the18th Century would have been impossible. Boswell used the library in the course of his practice as Advocate in Edinburgh and many of his law papers and briefs are held there.
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Many of you will know the Cambridge Companions to Literature series.
The thirtieth volume in the series, The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson,
published last year, is now available in Australia. The bound edition is
very
expensive as $95 and at something under $30 the paper bound edition
is much more reasonable.
There are 14 excellent papers in this volume, one of them being From
China to Peru: Johnson in the Travelled World by JSA foundation member
John Wiltshire.
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The R.B. Adam Library, put together by R.B. Adam and his father in the last 20 years of the last century and the first 20 years of this, was then the finest Johnson collection ever assembled by a private collector. It was purchased in 1948 by our patron and her late husband (then Donald and Mary Hyde). A magnificent catalogue describing the collection was published in four quarto volumes by Oxford University Press in 1929/30.
After many years of searching for a copy I recently obtained a set from
Forest Books of Knipton, Grantham, Lincs, NG32 1RF, England. It appeared
in a catalogue no 886 which was devoted to bibliography, book binding and
reference. Included in the price were three of Adam's famous Christmas
greetings for the years 1927, 1928 and 1929. I already have a copy of the
1926 greeting and I will now have a nice little run of these elaborately
produced pieces of
ephemeras.
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Those of you with an interest in 18th Century English life in general should read Lobhouse and Spotted Dog, written by Anne Grossman and her daughter Lisa Grossman-Thomas, published by W.W. Norton and Co, New York, 1997. It was written as a gastronomic companion to the famous Jack Aubrey novels of Patrick O'Brien. Aubrey is an English naval hero with a great love of food. This book looks closely as the food of the sailors and officers of the 18th Century Royal Navy. It is a fascinating read.
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Finally, let me recommend to you The Daily Telegraph Book of Obituaries, A Celebration of Eccentric Lives, edited by Hugh Massingberd and published in Pan Paperback, 1995. There is a second volume, published by the same publishers then following year, which deals with the obituaries of heroes and adventurers. The blurb on the first volume states that the book is "recent history made hilarious" and I urge you to find and read both volumes. I could not put them down. The search for these books will reward you amply.
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I look forward to seeing you all at the seminar in June, when I will
bring some things which may be of interest.
Your Editor feels the quizzes have become too easy lately, probabl;y because there are too many lists of Johnsonian quotation circulating, particularly on the Internet. This time, all the questions are based on Boswell's Tour of the Hebrides, some on quotations of Johnson, others on observations by Boswell.
1: "...I cannot account why a thing which requires so little exertion
and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity, should have gone out."
To what was Johnson referring?
2: "If he does not take this obvious and easy method, he gives the best
reason to doubt, considering how much is against it a priori."
To whom and to what was Johnson referring?
3: Who were Dr Minor and Dr Major?
4: "Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would lie in..."
5: For whom did Johnson promise to order a copy of The Idler?
6: Of whom did Johnson say: "At his age, it is too late for a man to be asking himself questions as to his beliefs"?
7: "While I prayed, I was disturbed by the objection against a particular providence and against hoping that the petition of an individual would have any influence with the Divinity..." Who was praying, and what was he praying about?
8: "At tea there were few cups and no tea-tongs nor a supernumerary tea-spoon, so we used our fingers." Under whose roof were these observations made by Boswell?
Answers to quiz No 14
(in which readers received extra value, there being by mistakes two
questions both numbered 3)
1: veteran
2: dangerous
3: an uncertainty
3a: torpedo
4: a wit among lords
5: the high road that leads him to England
6: up to themselves.
7: task
8: one book