A major academic controversy has raged in recent years over the analysis of the political and religious commitments of Samuel Johnson, the most commanding of the 'commanding heights' of eighteenth-century English letters. This book, one of a trilogy from Palgrave, brings that debate to a decisive conclusion, retrieving the 'historic Johnson.'

Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Preface Abbreviations Introduction Planning a Life of Johnson Attack and Mask: James Boswell's Indebtedness to Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson Boswell and the Making of Johnson 'The Casuistical Question': Oaths and Hypocrisy in the Writings of Johnson and Bolingbroke Fire under the Ashes: Johnson's Lives of the Poets as Narratives of History Johnson, Macpherson and the Memoirs of the Marshal Duke of Berwick Conclusion: The forgotten Room: Discovery and Denial in Recent Johnson Studies