Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood

From the opening

In making this abridgement of Boswell's Life of Johnson I have omitted most of Boswell's criticisms, comments, and notes, all of Johnson's opinions in legal cases, most of the letters, and parts of the conversation dealing with matters which were of greater importance in Boswell's day than now. I have kept in mind an old habit, common enough, I dare say, among its devotees, of opening the book of random, and reading wherever the eye falls upon a passage of especial interest. All such passages, I hope, have been retained, and enough of the whole book to illustrate all the phases of Johnson's mind and of his time which Boswell observed.

Loyal Johnsonians may look upon such a book with a measure of scorn. I could not have made it, had I not believed that it would be the means of drawing new readers to Boswell, and eventually of finding for them in the complete work what many have already found--days and years of growing enlightenment and happy companionship, and an innocent refuge from the cares and perturbations of life.

Phillips Brooks once told the boys at Exeter that in reading biography three men meet one another in close intimacy--the subject of the biography, the author, and the reader. Of the three the most interesting is, of course, the man about whom the book is written. The most privileged is the reader, who is thus allowed to live familiarly with an eminent man. Least regarded of the three is the author. It is his part to introduce the others, and to develop between them an acquaintance, perhaps a friendship, while he, though ever busy and solicitous, withdraws into the background.

Some think that Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, did not sufficiently realize his duty of self-effacement. He is too much in evidence, too bustling, too anxious that his own opinion, though comparatively unimportant, should get a hearing. In general, Boswell's faults are easily noticed, and have been too much talked about.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

• A Belated Guest (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)William Dean HowellsHistory19 pages
• A Bit of Old ChinaCharles Warren StoddardHistory17 pages
• A Book of Remarkable CriminalsH. B. IrvingHistory341 pages
• A Book of ScoundrelsCharles WhibleyHistory202 pages
• A Brief History of the Internet The Bright Side: The Dark SideMichael HartHistory59 pages