Bits and Bobs: Dr. Samuel Johnson's House

Today we toured the 300 year old Gough Square townhouse of Dr. Samuel Johnson, legend of English literature most famous for producing an 18th century dictionary of 42,000 words.

Here is Eddie's review of Dr. Johnson's sole novel. Johnson wrote the novel very quickly, in just 7 days, as he needed cash to help defray the costs of his mother's funeral.

The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson. On our February 2020 visit to Westminster Abbey I noted the Poet's Corner resting place of the venerable Dr. Johnson, renowned lexicographer whose groundbreaking A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) preceded the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) by 150 years. Immortalized by James Boswell's genre-defining biography The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), he is considered England's most distinguished man of letters, achieved despite deafness in one ear, blindness in one eye, and a propensity for involuntary physical and verbal tics (what would later be called Tourette's). Often compared to Voltaire's Candide, The History of Rasselas (1759), Johnson's only work of fiction, is the fanciful tale of a young man who flees a cosseted life of splendor to wander the world as a vagabond in search of the meaning of happiness. The magical prose makes for a most enjoyable read!"

In keeping with the day's literary theme, we stopped in to the nearby Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for a pub grub lunch. Oh so atmospheric, the 1666 tavern is renowned for its associations with great writers including Dr. Johnson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, G K Chesterton, P G Wodehouse, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, who actually alludes to the pub in his A Tale of Two Cities where the protagonists Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton enjoy "a good plain dinner and good wine." Eddie, however, was not impressed with the tofu stir-fry he ordered ... the sauce was way too sweet!

Monument to Johnson's beloved cat, Hodge,
who sits atop Johnson's dictionary

17 Gough Square, Samuel Johnson's home from 1749 to 1759
and where he compiled his renowned dictionary.

A portrait of Francis Barber,
Jamaican slave who became Samuel Johnson's good friend and heir

Portrait of Dr. Johnson

Portrait of Writer and Poet Elizabeth Carter 1765.
She was a good friend of Dr. Johnson.

A stained glass depiction of Dr. Johnson

The famous dictionary

Portrait of Johnson and Boswell meeting with Flora McDonald who
helped smuggled Bonnie Prince Charles Stuart,
disguised in female garb, to the Isle of Skye