WRITINGS BY SAM JOHNSON
ESSAYS
- The Rambler (1750–1752)
- The Adventurer (1753–1754)
- The Idler (1758–1760)
BIOGRAPHY
- An Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage (1744)
- Lives of the Poets (1779–1781)
- Early Biographical Writings of Dr. Johnson (ed. J. D. Fleeman, 1973)
DICTIONARY
- Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language (1747)
- A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
- online version in progress, ed. Brandi Besalke
POETRY
- Messiah (1728), a translation into Latin of Pope’s poem
- London (1738)
- The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
SHAKESPEARE
- The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765)
NOVELLA/TALE
- Rasselas (1759)
MAGAZINE WRITING
- Gentleman’s Magazine, staff writer and editor (1738–1745)
PLAY
- Irene (1749)
LETTERS
- The Letters of Samuel Johnson (ed. R. W. Chapman, 1952)
- The Letters of Samuel Johnson (ed. Bruce Redford, 1992–1994)
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS
- The False Alarm (1770)
- Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland’s Islands (1771)
- The Patriot (1774)
- Taxation No Tyranny (1775)
TRAVEL WRITING
- A Voyage to Abyssinia (1735), translation from French into English of Jerónimo Lobo’s work
- A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
COMPLETE WRITINGS
- The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson
- The Complete English Poems (ed. J. D. Fleeman, 1971)
- The Latin Poems (transl. and ed. Niall Rudd, 2005)
- Selectively online:
COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES
- The Hyde Collection at Harvard University
- The Pembroke College collection at Oxford University
- The British Library collection
- The Boswell Collection at Yale University
WRITINGS ABOUT SAM JOHNSON
(highly selective)
SCHOLARLY BIOGRAPHIES
- Bate, W. Jackson. Samuel Johnson (1979)
- Brack, O M, and Robert E. Kelley (eds.). The Early Biographies of Samuel Johnson (1974)
- Clifford, James L. Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson’s Middle Years (1979)
- Clifford, James L. Young Sam Johnson (1955)
- Kaminski, Thomas. The Early Career of Samuel Johnson (1987)
- Martin, Peter. Samuel Johnson: A Biography (2008)
- Meyers, Jeffrey. Samuel Johnson: The Struggle (2008)
- Nokes, David. Samuel Johnson: A Life (2009)
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
- Hibbert, Christopher. The Personal History of Samuel Johnson (1971)
- Jones, Wayne. My Sam Johnson (forthcoming)
- Littlejohn, David. Dr. Johnson: His Life in Letters (1965)
- Norman, Charles. Mr. Oddity: Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1951)
- Wain, John. Samuel Johnson: A Biography (1974)
CONTEMPORARY (18th-CENTURY) BIOGRAPHIES
- Boswell, James. The A-Z of Dr Johnson: Boswell’s Life of Johnson, originally broadcast on BBC 4
- Boswell, James. Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
- Hawkins, John. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1787)
- Thrale, Hester. Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786)
BY WAYNE JONES
- January 2021: “The Day Cometh: Samuel Johnson for the General Reader,” in The Johnson Society Transactions 2020
- November 24, 2020: “My Sam Johnson: Writing a Biography for the General Reader,” Botanica Speakers Series
- January 31, 2020: Guest posting, “Johnson’s Dense Style,” on the blog of the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum
- January 10, 2020: Presentation at the conference of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Oxford University (program here): “My Sam Johnson: Writing a Biography for a General Readership” (PDF of slides)
- July 3, 2019-present: My Sam Johnson blog
- [Note: 3.5-year hiatus while I co-wrote this other book]
- April 8, 2016: “My Sam Johnson: Writing a Biography for a Popular Readership,” presentation to the Dept. of English at Carleton University
- February 14, 2016: Interview on Oscar Martens’s Media Whore blog: “Wayne Jones Wants You to Know Samuel Johnson“
