Barbara Presents Boswell & Johnson

Jacquie's Email

sigh!

Dear Literary Ladies: Well, if the pandemic has taught members of this club anything, it is flexibility, and I think we've all been successfully doing backflips and somersaults like it's nobody's business! And this week is no exception.

    First, we had plans (hopes?) to meet in Joanna's lovely garden to brown bag it in person. Alas, the forecast was not working in our favor, and our limber president made the difficult call of putting off our outdoor get-together for our final meeting on the 16th. We will be meeting this Wednesday on Zoom.

    Second – though this really only applied to me – I read in our booklet that Barbara was going to be presenting on Evelyn Waugh, which immediately got me excited because I was going to be able to share one of my favorite TV series photos of all time for all to gaze and sigh over

... only to then have the niggling memory that Barbara was not in fact doing Evelyn Waugh. In a confirmation email, she assured me she would be presenting on Boswell's Life of Johnson. This did not immediately bring up a humorous thought or any sigh-worthy images ... until the very writing of this sentence made me think of my favorite Johnson quote: “... when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life...” 

    And remembering that quote made me think of the black and white poster with this quote on it that I had bought at the Museum of London during my junior year abroad in 1985, which I proceeded to collage within an inch of its life with clippings from all of the magazines and brochures I was collecting. And remembering said poster was in the furnace room of my childhood home in Poughkeepsie, I then asked my 91-year-old father to schlepp down into the furnace room and take a photo of it for me to use in this email. 

    Patting myself on the back for this little bit of brilliance, I opened the photo he sent me ... only to realize that I misremembered the quote. This one is by some guy named William Dunbar. Nice, but he's no Johnson.

    Basically, I got nothin’

    Another moment to practice flexibility ...

    Luckily, despite all my nonsense, we will be meeting this Wednesday on Zoom at 12:45 pm when Barbara will be presenting on Boswell's Life of Johnson, which should prove to be a wonderful addition to our exploration of Biography as our year with this topic (and hopefully our need for flexibility!!???) winds down. 

    If you have even made it this far in my email, I apologize for this ramble. Until Wednesday, x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

On account of your recording secretary’s befuddled state, following knee surgery on her third knee (editor's note: befuddled, yes, she means third knee surgery, not that she has three knees), President Connie Stewart made the following notes.

    Literature Club members attended a Zoom meeting on May 4, 2022. We were joined by Associate Member Jenny Goodrich, but missing Diana Jaeger and Lori Walsh. Recording Secretary Christine Lehner joined us briefly in person, impressive since she was only a few days out of major surgery, and for the most part she was a silent but reassuring presence during our proceedings.

    We have $460.11 in our account. Member Sharon DeLevie spoke to Debbie Quinn at the library about what books they may like us to donate this year. Debbie is going to discuss this with the library staff and get back to us.

    The members did our go round of catch-up chats, and despite the intimidating amount of COVID cases we are all hearing about now, many more of us are venturing out: members described attending the Holbein show at the Morgan Library, and Winslow Homer at the Met, going to the ballet, plans for a lovely green Mother’s Day celebration, and ventures to the theater. Some are traveling: Carol is packing for a trip to France earned many times over, and Joanna told of her plans to go to her high school reunion in Montreal--she attended the unbelievably named Miss Edgar’s and Miss Cramp’s School and filled us in about her days as a prefect handing out demerits for uniform infractions. I am very glad to know Joanna now, because we may not have gotten along in high school. Joanna also described her and Diana's big bike trip in Louisiana, and there may be a lesson learned in their conviction afterwards that they would rather bike a linear course with a clear destination in New York, than a circular route in Louisiana, despite the good music and food.

    Perhaps that echoes back to our discussion of this week’s leak of the Supreme Court draft of an opinion in which the conservative majority is now positioned for the first time in history to end a constitutional right: women's right to an abortion.

    Barbara Morrow began her presentation on Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, by painting for us an image of the two men: the tall, powerfully built Johnson, indifferent to fashion, next to the short, plump Boswell, a dapper dresser. The two were a gift to caricaturists such as Max Beerbohm, who took full advantage of their odd pairing.

    Johnson, the son of a bookseller, was proud of being self-made, while Boswell relished his descent from the Norman conquerors. Johnson was already in his fifties when he met the twenty-something Boswell in 1763. Though initially put off by Boswell’s pushiness, Johnson soon came to enjoy his energy and optimism, and was pleased that Boswell was assiduously collecting material for the great biography that would emerge. As Shaw pointed out, Boswell was “the dramatist who invented Dr. Johnson.”

    The two men also shared a dread of looming mental illness. Johnson suffered from bouts of depression since his youth and would probably now be diagnosed as OCD. Boswell had radical mood swings that most likely were bipolar disorder.

    Like his famous subject, Boswell kept a diary which he wrote in a “lively, conversational style.” These volumes are now safely stored at the Yale Rare Books Library.

    Johnson was first known as the writer of essays on a wide variety of subjects, from debtors’ prison to first-person accounts of the female experience. Then, in 1746, a group of publishers commissioned him to produce a dictionary. When it came out in 1755, it was immediately recognized as a monument to, and within, the English language. For the first time, the more or less 40,000 words of English were defined and not merely listed.

    Early on in his labors on the dictionary, Johnson realized that his stipend from the publishers would not be sufficient to support him. He then appealed to Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to be his patron. Chesterfield did not respond to the appeal; though eight years later he was pleased to imply he had supported the great endeavor. Johnson was withering in his famous letter to Chesterfield, regarding his misleading statements.

    Thankfully, in 1762 King George III, a voracious reader and admirer of Johnson’s work, awarded him a royal pension of £300 per year, a very comfortable amount.

    Samuel Johnson died in 1784 at the age of seventy-five, and Boswell immediately set to work on the biography. The first edition came out in 1791 and was a huge success. As with so many occurrences in life and literature this year, Boswell’s Life was a first. Never before had a biographer included in his work his subject’s actual conversation. Never before had a biographer been so uniquely situated to do so. Members read selections chosen from the vast and lengthy biography.

Respectfully Submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary