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Title: Samuel Johnson and the Culture of Property by Kevin Hart ISBN: 0-521-65182-4 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 September, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $65.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Who 'owns' Johnson? Or Boswell's Life of Johnson?
Comment: The title of this book doesn't do justice to Hart's analysis -- Hart has examined literary ownership, and pride in that ownership, from a variety of angles that relate to Samuel Johnson. (In email, when I asked Hart about the title, he as much said it was the publisher's idea. But Hart's concept is intricate, and not easily captured, so Cambridge can be forgiven.)

Hart examines the process of appropriating Johnson as property. For Boswell, this means separating Johnson's life from Johnson's writings. Once Boswell's "Life of Johnson" becomes a monument, it means the efforts of others to carve out a relevant position - - from the 18th C Croker edition of Boswell which interpolated all sorts of material to 'round out' Boswell's gaps; a later, more 'purist' edition by Fitzgerald; followed by the famous George Birkbeck Hill edition where the quantity of footnotes rivalled the quantity of Boswell. And once the Hill edition became sacred, it was up to Powell to keep it sacred in a later edition, by adding considerably, but ONLY in appendixes so as to not detract from the Hill text. So, in each round, property was carved out.

Hart also examines Boswell's parading of Johnson throguh Scotland, and how Boswell basked not just in Johnson's reflected glory, but basked also as the impresario who brought the English monument to Scotland. Other examinations of property include copyright and forgery, through discussions of law and Ossian.

Hart has a deft hand here, and turns quite a number of brilliant tricks. He makes clever connections of Boswell as Hamlet, and readings of Gibbon's words that have been lost in recent, popular editions. He discusses the British cultural significance of "Samuel Johnson," and why British prisoners of war in Germany (in WW II) were sent Boswell's "Life" rather than the actual writings by Johnson. All in all, this book rewards the attentive reader.

The price, however, (at around $60 currently) leaves something to be desired. I suppose there is something to a need to have Cambridge compensated for publishing an item that doesn't have broad appeal, but I don't see how a price like this will make its appeal broader.