Samuel Johnson manuscripts, 1725-1784.

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Samuel Johnson manuscripts, 1725-1784.

https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/resources/1497

This collection consists of items in Johnson's hand, and early transcripts of his manuscripts. Highlights include a 77-page diary which Johnson kept sporadically from 1765 to 1784; a 1784 deed of his teapot to his servant Francis Barber; and the last known document in his hand, a pension receipt he signed on the day of his death in 1784. The collection includes partial drafts of many of his works, including Irene; Lives of the English Poets (biographies of Pope and Rowe); London; A Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language; and The Vanity of Human Wishes. It also includes his partial translation of Sallust's Catiline; annotations of documents by Giuseppe Baretti, Richard Bathurst, and Hester Lynch Piozzi; notes on theologians Samuel Clarke and Styan Thirlby; and documents he wrote on behalf of Mary Dunn Collier Flint, Henry Thrale, and the widowed mother of Joseph Hunt. The collection also includes significant early transcripts of documents authored by Johnson, such as several pages of extracts which James Boswell made from Johnson's lost earlier diary; Boswell's transcript of Johnson's annotations on Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland; and two fragments prepared by an amanuensis for Johnson's Dictionary. Most of the collection is in English, but a substantial portion is written in, or translated from, Latin.

1 box, 14 volumes, and 1 framed item (1.4 linear ft.)

eng,

lat,

Houghton Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7801333

Houghton Library

Related Entities

There are 17 Entities related to this resource.

Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson (Houghton Library)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tv5gw7 (corporateBody)

Hodge (Cat)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p09047 (person)

Hodge was a cat who lived with Samuel Johnson at his Gough Square home in the mid-18th century. James Boswell described Johnson's affinity for Hodge in his Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: "Hodge was Samuel Johnson's beloved cat. While he had other feline companions, Hodge is the most well-known, owing to a passage in James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Boswell wrote: 'Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his...

Barber, Francis, 1742 or 1743-1801

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65v49ww (person)

Francis Barber (c. 1742/3 – 13 January 1801), whose original name was Quashey (a common name for men of Coromantee origin), was the Jamaican manservant of lexicographer Samuel Johnson in London from 1752 until Johnson's death in 1784. Barber was born enslaved in Jamaica on a sugarcane plantation belonging to the Bathurst family. At the age of about 15, he was brought to England by his owner, Colonel Richard Bathhurst, whose son, also called Richard, was a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Barbe...

Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sb43r1 (person)

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was one of the leading literary figures of eighteenth-century England. He is best remembered for compiling the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language, published in 1755. Prominent among his diverse other works, he also wrote the satirical History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759), edited The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare (1765), and produced the important Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets (first collect...

Thirlby, Styan, approximately 1686-1753

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65b06qq (person)

Bathurst, Richard, -1762

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6348r8v (person)

Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gh9g3w (person)

A general outline of the life and works of the poet Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, can be found in the Dictionary of National Biography, but there are numerous biographical and critical evaluations if more detailed information is required From the guide to the Verse translation of Book III, metre 9 of Boethius's, De consolatione philosophiae, by Alexander Pope, ca.1703-1704, (GB 206 Leeds University Library) A general outline of the life and works of the poet Alexander Pope can ...

Flint, Mary Dunn Collier.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6639vh6 (person)

Boswell, James, 1740-1795

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6m32t04 (person)

James Boswell (1740-1795) was the author of one of the most influential biographies in the English language, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. He also wrote two successful travel books: An Account of Corsica, and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. He worked intermittently as a lawyer, and in 1782 succeeded his father as Laird of Auchinleck in Scotland. From the description of James Boswell letters, 1762-1795. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 612839330 Boswell wa...

Piozzi, Hester Lynch, 1741-1821

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bp06t2 (person)

Hester Lynch Thrale (born Hester Lynch Salusbury and after her second marriage, Hester Lynch Piozzi ) was a British diarist, author, and patron of the arts. Her diaries and correspondence are an important source of information about Samuel Johnson and eighteenth-century life. From the description of Autograph poem, unsigned, an adaptation of Francis Fawkes's "An Autumnal Ode, " no date [paper watermarked 1813]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754864928 From the description of...

Hunt, Joseph, d. 1761.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63201pt (person)

Thrale, Henry, 1728-1781

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j96bjg (person)

Epithet: brewer, of St. Saviour's, Southwark, and Streatham British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001344.0x0003a3 Epithet: of Southwark British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001344.0x0003a4 Epithet: MP, husband of Hester Lynch Thrale British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100...

Baretti, Giuseppe, 1719-1789

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6st7v1p (person)

Giuseppe Marco Antonio Baretti (1719-1789) was a native of Turin, Italy. After beginning his literary career in Italy, he removed to London in 1751. There he served as an Italian language tutor, and soon became a member of Samuel Johnson's literary circle. After publishing A Dictionary of the English and Italian Languages (1760), he returned to Italy for five years, where he courted controversy with his literary periodical La Frusta Letteraria. He settled in London permanently in 1765. In 1769, ...

Clarke, Samuel, 1675-1729

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60z77zk (person)

English metaphysician. From the description of Samuel Clarke papers, 1722. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79455822 Theologian, scholar, and philosopher Samuel Clarke was born in Norwich and had a celebrated academic career at Cambridge. He became chaplain to the bishop of Norwich and, later, to Queen Anne. His most ambitious works, the Boyle Lectures, asserted that God's existence could be proven by mathematical logic, and that the principles of morality are as set and consi...

Rowe, Nicholas, 1674-1718

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kp87cv (person)

Sallust, 86-34 B.C.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ks6xdv (person)

Dalrymple, David, Sir, 1726-1792

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6mc947d (person)

Scottish judge. From the description of Autograph letter signed : Newhailes, to [Thomas] Percy, 1781 Apr. 21. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270526003 From the description of Autograph report signed : Newhailes near Edinburgh, to an unidentified Lord, 1783 Apr. 18. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270534400 From the description of Autograph letter signed : Newhailes, to an unidentified correspondent, 1790 Dec. 14. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270525977 ...