The Club
Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
Published on 23. April 2019
Book
Hardback
488 pages
978-0-300-21790-2 (ISBN)
Description
The story of the group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavern
Selected by New York Times Book Review as a Best Book Since 2000
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 * A Kirkus Best Book of 2019
"Magnificently entertaining."-Washington Post
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club."
In this captivating book, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters. With the friendship of the "odd couple" Samuel Johnson and James Boswell at the heart of his narrative, Damrosch conjures up the precarious, exciting, and often brutal world of late eighteenth-century Britain. This is the story of an extraordinary group of people whose ideas helped to shape their age, and our own.
Selected by New York Times Book Review as a Best Book Since 2000
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 * A Kirkus Best Book of 2019
"Magnificently entertaining."-Washington Post
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club."
In this captivating book, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters. With the friendship of the "odd couple" Samuel Johnson and James Boswell at the heart of his narrative, Damrosch conjures up the precarious, exciting, and often brutal world of late eighteenth-century Britain. This is the story of an extraordinary group of people whose ideas helped to shape their age, and our own.
Reviews / Votes
Selected by New York Times Book Review as a Best Book Since 2000"A magnificently entertaining book."-Michael Dirda, Washington Post
"A very readable introduction."-Emily Jones, Financial Times
"Impeccable scholarship at the service of absolute lucidity. . . . Learned, penetrating, a pleasure to read. . . . [A] splendid book."-Joseph Epstein, Wall Street Journal
"Engaging and illuminating . . . Damrosch is a crisp guide. . . He wears his learning lightly, and his sympathetic enjoyment is infectious. . . . In The Club, as the actors appear one by one, surrounding Johnson and Boswell on Damrosch's stage, we are transported back to a world of conversations, arguments, ideas, and writings. And in this vibrantly realized milieu, words rarely fail."-Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books
"Damrosch brilliantly brings together the members' voices. . . . As this stellar book moves from one Club member to another, it comes together as an ambitious venture homing in on the nature of creative stimulus. . . . The best historians . . . invite readers to accompany them 'behind the scenes.' Damrosch does precisely that here, . . . [in] a book that sustains a shared conversation, a terrific feat in keeping with that of the Club itself."-Lyndall Gordon, New York Times Book Review
A New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2019
"Beginning in 1764, some of Britain's future leading lights (including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke and Edward Gibbon) met every Friday night to talk and drink. Damrosch's magnificent history revives the Club's creative ferment."-New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
A Publishers Weekly's Best Book of 2019
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2019
"Damrosch's strength lies in the retelling of colourful anecdotes."-Jane Darcy, Times Literary Supplement
"Damrosch has a keen eye for the quirks of character and provides an engaging, informative introduction."-Henry Hitchings, Times (UK)
"[A] detailed, gripping study of genius and geniality in 18th century London."-Alex Colville, Spectator
"Lively and perceptive."-Jeffrey Meyers, Times Higher Education
"This is a genial book."-Clive Aslet, Country Life
"[A] generously illustrated group biography."-Oldie
"This book . . . does combine several strands of scholarship and literary investigation to create an entertaining overview of the world in which they, and others, interacted. Damrosch brings the different characters to life, revealing them as fallible but likeable human beings, rather than just revered cultural figures. More importantly, we get a glimpse of the enjoyment that they felt in one another's company."-Paul Flux, Albion
Finalist for the 2019 Julia Ward Howe award for nonfiction category, sponsored by The Boston Authors Club
Winner in the PROSE Awards Biography and Autobiography category, sponsored by the Association of American Publishers
Finalist in the L.A. Times Book Prize, biography category, sponsored by the L.A.Times.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Christian Gauss Book Award, sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society
"The Club is a stimulating and delightful work. The portraits of Boswell, Gibbon, and Burke are extraordinary condensations granting us accurate visions of complex personalities. Leo Damrosch has addressed himself to common readers with authentic gusto."-Harold Bloom
"Leo Damrosch's book is an extraordinary achievement. A lively and engaging account of the coming together of a group of famously gifted individuals-the Club, a virtual microcosm of the vibrant world of mid-to-late eighteenth-century London."-William C. Dowling, Rutgers University
"Brilliant, lucid, and enjoyable . . . With perfectly chosen anecdotes, The Club vividly evokes the period."-Norma Clarke, author of Dr Johnson's Women
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
31 color + 93 b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-300-21790-2 (9780300217902)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Leo Damrosch is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature Emeritus at Harvard University. His previous works include the National Book Critics Circle Award winner Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World, and Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake. He lives in Newton, MA.