THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY

EDITED BY

WILL D. HOWE

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY

BOSWELL'S

LIFE OF JOHNSON

THE MODERN

STUDENT'S LIBRARY

EACH VOLUME EDITED BY A LEADING AMERICAN AUTHORITY

This series is composed of such works as are conspicuous in the province of literature for their enduring influence. Every volume is recognized as essential to a liberal education and will tend to infuse a love for true iterature and an appreciation of the qualities which cause it to endure.

A descriptive list of the volumes published in this series appears in the last pages of this volume

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

PREFACE

In making this abridgment of Boswell's Life of Johnson 1 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 at 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.

PRINCETON, June 28, 1917.