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THE STORY OF DOCTOR JOHNSON
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, Manager
LONDON: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
BOMBAY }
CALCUTTA} MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
MADRAS }
TORONTO: J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd.
TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Story of
Doctor Johnson
Being an Introduction to
Boswell's Life
By S. C. ROBERTS, M.A.
Sometime Scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE
At the University Press
1919
First Edition February 1919
Second Edition June 1919
UXORI CARISSIMAE
IN MEMORIAM
NOCTIUM BOSWELLIANARUM
PREFACE
The object of this little book is clearly expressedon the title-page; and the title-pagemight be left to speak for itself, were it not forthe inevitable criticism that Boswell needs nointroduction. "The most discreet of cicerones"it has been said "is an intruder when we open ourold favourite, and, without further magic, retireinto that delicious nook of eighteenth-centurysociety[1]."
This is from the point of view of the literaryman, the "true lover" of Boswell; but the Lifeis a long and, outwardly, formidable work withwhich many, who might have been true lovers,have, through lack of an introduction, hardly attainedeven to a casual acquaintance.
The usefulness, then, of such a book as thiscan be tested by one question: Is a man more,or less, likely to read Boswell and to read himwith enjoyment, because, as a boy, he has beentold the story of Dr Johnson in simpler form?
This "