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| Former Johnson Society Chairman John Wilson during his entertaining speech and his donation of memorabilia (including his tie) at the JSA Christmas party. |
Distinguished visitor at the Christmas party
The JSA’s 1998 Christmas Party on December 12 was not only the usual scene of much jollity, music, eating and drinking but was also distinguished by a visit from John Wilson, formerly chairman of the Johnson Society in Lichfield for many years, who has provided hospitality to several JSA members on visits to Johnson’s birthplace.
John, a former Mayor of Lichfield, was welcomed by President Paul Brown and gave a warm and witty speech in reply.
In a symbolic gesture of fellowship, he removed his Johnson Society tie and handed it over to Secretary Bryan Reid, whom he had met in Lichfield during Bryan’s 1996 visit.
The party attracted about 50 members and guests who enjoyed first-class fare provided by members, with catering very efficiently handled by Marta Brown, Carla Hawley, Bronwen Hickman and other willing helpers.
Entertainment included poetry readings by Kevin Hart and actor/teacher John Jacobs, while the music took an entirely new direction with the engagement of Graham Coyle, one of Australia’s leading jazz pianists, who also provided splendid accompaniment for the carol singing.
December 11 has been set for the 1999 Christmas party (see schedule of events). Pictures taken at the Christmas party can be seen on Pages 4 and 5.
JSA member from the U.S. writes on
Johnson’s defence of women …
New works, and old, on Johnson
There’s been a spate of Johnsonian writing recently, including a new book by one of our American members, Dr Kathleen Kemmerer, who is a lecturer in English at the State University of Pennsylvania.
Kathleen kindly sent us a copy of the book, “A Neutral Being Between The Sexes” Samuel Johnson’s Sexual Politics, published by Associated University Presses, London.
The author advances the proposition that, so far from being a misogynistic down-putter of women and their abilities, as might be inferred from the Life, Johnson’s contemporary women intellectuals saw him as a strong defender of women in the traditional debate about female nature and ability.
She concludes that Johnson’s ultimate answer is that the errors and expectations of both sexes play a large part, but that eliminating stereotypes and fostering mutual cooperation and respect between men and women would make life much more pleasant for all.
We have asked JSA foundation member John Wiltshire to give us a full review of the book, which we will publish in a later issue of The Southern Johnsonian.
Another recent work on Johnson is Samuel Johnson, The Life of an Author, by Lawrence Lipking (Harvard University press), which has been described by another scholar of the 18th Century as “what may well be the last word on Johnson in the 20th Century — a beautifully written synopsis of both the corpus of Johnson’s writings and the ways in which those writings have been addressed in the past fifty years.”
If you have a lazy four thousand dollars or so, you might like to adorn your library with The ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ in The Age of Samuel Johnson, 1731-1745, published in 16 volumes totalling 11,200 pages, published by Pickering and Chatto and priced at 1400 pounds sterling.
It was on the Gentleman’s Magazine that the young Samuel Johnson cut his journalistic and literary teeth and he always spoke of the publication and its redoubtable founder and editor, William Cave, with admiration, respect and affection.
While Cave’s many critics, including Alexander Pope, were scornful of the Gentleman’s Magazine, Johnson regarded its St John’s Gate printing and publishing works as “a modern temple of learning.”
The new publication is a facsimile edition from the magazine’s first number to the end of the fifteenth. A supplementary volume carries Cave’s “Miscellaneous Correspondence” and an index first published in 1818.
The Times Literary Supplement says the work “will make available to those with well-resourced libraries … a matchless guide to an 18th Century of restless aspiration and self-improvement.”
Following are dates for some important JSA events in 1999. Make sure you put them in your diary immediately!
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Visit to 18th century portraiture at National Gallery of Victoria. Annual Seminar and Dinner Annual General Meeting and Fleeman Memorial Lecture Christmas Party |
Melbourne JSA member writes
book about …
A bookseller’s life
Another of our members has turned to authorship with a fascinating account of his life as a bookseller (he owns Alice’s Bookshop in Rathdowne Street, North Carlton).
In his introduction to Trafficking in Old Books, Anthony Marshall disclaims any pretensions to producing a manual for secondhand bookdealers or people aspiring to become dealers.
He dedicates his book to the entertainment of “people like you, who have a passion for books and reading and who love to visit old bookshops and (possibly) old booksellers.” Trafficking in Old Books is published by Lost Domain, Melbourne, and is priced at $20. The book will be given a full review in a future edition of The Southern Johnsonian.
Johnsonians will enjoy Simon Winchester’s The Surgeon of Crowthorne, an attractive collectable volume about the production of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Winchester’s story focuses on its editor for nearly 50 years, the Scottish self-taught philologist James Murray, and one of its most famous voluntary contributors, Dr W.C. Minor, an American surgeon incarcerated in Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The tale is tragic, yet uplifting, and told by a scholar with a heart, who manages to include in his compact, elegantly written tale much about the 70 year-long production of the OED, a vivid account of the American Civil War, the squalid lubricity of the south bank of the Thames, and something of Victorian intellectual life.
And there is a substantial section on the role of the Great Cham in the history of English dictionary-making. One disappointment: the book has no index.
— Barry Sheppard
A little piece of something special in the Johnson world has come to an
end. Sally Edgecombe of J. Clarke-Hall Ltd has closed her shop at 22 Bride
Lane. The business existed for something over 70 years and for much of
that time the shop was the first call in London for those wishing to purchase
hard-to-find bibliographic treasures. Many of the world’s great Johnson
and Boswell collectors acquired precious material there. Sally plans to
continue dealing, mainly via catalogues and quotes, from 75 Middle Street,
Deal, Kent, CT 1 4 6HN, where her telephone number will be (from Australia)
0011 44 1304 375 467.
Those of you who love fine printing and “the book as an object” may be interested in The Alciun Society (PO Box 3216, Vancouver BC, V6B 3X8, Canada). Founded in 1865, the society exists to promote a wider appreciation of what goes into the production of finely-wrought books. Membership is only $40 (Canadian), and for that you receive a most interesting quarterly magazine and regular keepsakes. John King, a fellow-member of mine in the A. Edward-Newton Society, is a director of the Alciun Society and he gifted me a membership some three years ago. I was so impressed with the society’s publications that I have continued membership and I am sure that many of you would also find great pleasure in the society’s publications.
I have for some time been receiving catalogues from Clearwater Books, whose address is St Bartholomew Cottage, Green Haze, Shipton Gorge, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4LU. The firm’s recent catalogue No 80, entitled About Books And Books About Books About Books, contains much Johnson and Boswell material including hard-to find academic works. Among the interesting books offered I noted The Age of Johnson. This collection of essays presented to Chauncey Brewster Tinker, was edited by F.W. Hilles and published by Yale University Press, 1949. It contains a groundbreaking essay, Johnson’s Vile Melancholy, by Katherine Balderston, and it should be in every serious Johnsonian library. At £55 sterling it is not cheap, but it is catalogued as a fine copy, in slightly nicked dust jacket and is good value.
Our distinguished member from Japan, Professor Dake Nagashima, wrote to me recently to advise me that he would be in England in September, 1999, with a group of 10 members of The Johnson Club of Japan who, in addition to visiting Johnson sites in London, will visit Lichfield and Scotland, where they propose to do a four-to-five day tour in the footsteps of Johnson and Boswell. The tour group which I will be leading will meet up with Dake, and I am sure we will have much in common to discuss.
I have recently bought A History of Pembroke College, Oxford by Douglas MacLeane, published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1897. Beautifully bound in red morocco by Morley of Oxford, the volume is graced by a fore-edge painting of Oxford with Pembroke College tower in the foreground. I shall bring it to show you at the annual seminar. I obtained this treasure from Ruth Inglehart, who trades as Hartfield Fine and Rare Books, of II7 Dixboro Road, Ann Arbor, Ml481059758, United States. Her catalogues always have something of interest and again, I suggest that collectors should write and ask to be placed on the mailing list.
Finally, I have received from Loren Rothschild a copy of the latest keepsake published by the Samuel Johnson Society of Southern California. Introduced by Gay Wilson Brack, President of the society, it is entitled Hester Lynch Piozzi Remembers Samuel Johnson and is printed in an edition of 250 copies. I think our society should give some thought to producing an annual keepsake and I hope to address you on this matter at the seminar.
One of our foundation members, Greg Veitch, and his wife Di have left Melbourne for Perth, where Greg has been transferred in his employment. Greg will be remembered for his excellent paper at the 1998 seminar, Johnson, Science and Technology. He and Di have been regular attenders at JSA functions and we will miss them at future get-togethers, but hope they will be able to make the occasional visit to Melbourne.
Another early member of the JSA, Geoff Brand, married Margaret van Noordenburg on December 19 at St George’s Church, Queenscliff, where Geoff has an antiquarian bookshop. Margaret has attended several recent JSA functions and we look forward to seeing them both at many more.
Congratulations!
This poem appears in Collected Poems by Kenneth Slessor (1993) which comprises works not published during Slessor’s lifetime:
Oh what a pleasure ’tis to see
Dear Doctor Johnson drinking tea,
Mount Kosciusko come to sup
An Alp descending on a cup,
Above the steam, with solemn grace,
He lifts his round enormous face
Roaring like water in a cave
With sermons excellent and grave.
In dreadful quiet the guests exhale,
Viewed with a frown by Mrs Thrale,
As one by one across the room
Tremendous cannon-lectures boom.
Thus Dr Johnson graces tea
With virtuous philosophy.
But all the time, in buried cells
He gloats on birds and dancing bells,
His mind a pool of naked rose,
Of girls, and of seraglios…
As with the last quiz, these questions are based on excerpts from Anecdotes of Dr Johnson, by Hester Lynch Piozzi.
- Garrick to Johnson: Why did you not make me a tory, when we lived
so much together, you love to make people tories?
Johnson: “Why (pulling a heap of halfpence from his pocket) …” - “… he hated to give away … or even to sell them too cheaply.”
- “… he used to say ‘that he might have done it easily in two years, had not his health received several shocks during the time.’” Might have done what?
- “I fear not, Madam (said he) the little fellow has done wonders.” To whom was Johnson referring and in what context?
- Richardson has picked the kernel of life (he said) while … was contented with the husk.”
- “There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity.” Who was the man?
- “Let the people learn necessary knowledge; let them learn to count their fingers, and to count their money, before they are caring for …”
- What was Mrs Thrale’s question to Johnson’s answer: “That in the first place, the company was shut in on him there; and could not escape, as out of a room …”?
- A Stilton cheese sent anonymously to Mrs Thrale.
- illiterate
- the last page
- rooks
- truth
- grey
- To reckon it as a “meridian of that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of the whole earth, the real globe.”
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