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“... of friends and acquaintances sufficient to elicit sequences of correspondence. The Johnson of Redford’s Volume I is rather shy and preoccupied, formal in relationships with his new London acquaintance. An impression of sorrow and of a peculiar kind of lethargy makes itself felt. We see at first hand how he promises and promises that he will go to ...”

“... 30 years ago, and their activities have been much discussed and documented since, most recently by Bruce Redford in his study Dilettanti (2008). Kelly’s contribution is to offer considerable and interesting detail about the various journeys, how they went, what was included, and how, in time, the Grecian taste began to spread. He also suggests, less ...”

“... One of the general effects of hero-worship is its tendency to marshal resentment in those who claim themselves no party to the admiration. A good example of this offers itself at the opening of Vanity Fair – ‘A Novel without a Hero’ – when the single-minded Becky Sharp, high in a coach bound for Russell Square, flings a copy of Johnson’s Dictionary out of the window to land on the grass at the feet of her former teacher, a sworn disciple of the Great Lexicographer ...”

“... of some earlier volumes, as well as of some other critical discussions (the most recent being Bruce Redford’s), to assimilate Boswell’s personal writings to the art of the novelist or playwright, or to the conventions of formally crafted rhetoric, is here subdued. But the volume shares with the rest of the series a straining to impose a ...”

“... unwholesome adoration in his aptly-titled Underworld, and put it into the caustic mouth of Lenny Bruce, found here delivering a monologue during the Cuban missile crisis: ‘Kennedy makes an appearance in public and you hear people say, I saw his hair! Or, I saw his teeth! The spectacle’s so dazzling they can’t take it all in. I saw his hair! They’re ...”