The Authentic Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) does not look like the sort of popular icon whom todayâ??s teenagers or college students would have a poster of on their bedroom walls. And yet I am confident they could connect with this fascinating 18th-century figure, if only they knew him better. On the one hand, they would empathize with the burden of Johnsonâ??s afflictions â?? including deafness and impaired vision (he was half-blind), his poverty (which dogged him until King George III awarded him a pension in his 50s), his depression, his fears, his religious doubts (at age 9 and throughout his adolescence, he stopped going to church), his oddball friends, his mood swings, his skin problems (he bore the scars of scrofula), the awkwardness of his large, lumbering physique, his competitiveness (he would talk for victory), his troubles with women, his problems paying for college, and his struggles to find gainful employment.