Six Essays on Samuel Johnson

This engaging series of essays breathes hearty life into Samuel Johnson, blowing away the dust to reveal an appealing, vigorous and surprisingly modern personality. A deeply humane addition to the Johnsonian bibliography which leaves readers wanting much more of the palpable delight he discovers in his subject.” 

David E. Coke, co-author of Vauxhall Gardens, a History

Lexicographer, essayist, biographer, poet, critic, conversationalist and wit, Dr Johnson was one of
the towering figures of English literature.

Ross Davies brings you some fascinating, lesser-known aspects of the Doctor’s life: visiting Vauxhall Gardens, drinking in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, traipsing around Wales. We see Johnson through the critical eyes of H.L. Mencken, as the subject of a meticulous 20th-century genealogist, and as one half, with James Boswell, of a crime-busting detective duo. 

Born in Liverpool, Ross Davies was educated at the city’s Alsop High School before graduating from the University College of North Wales, Bangor. While a diary columnist for The Times in London, he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford for research on the Great War soldier-author Donald Hankey. Other books by Ross Davies: Inside Fleet Street, Women and Work, Drummond Allison: Come, Let Us Pity Death, F. W. Harvey: Poet of Remembrance, Vauxhall: A Little History, ‘A Student in Arms’: Donald Hankey and Edwardian Society at War and Six Essays on Samuel Johnson.