The World in Thirty-Eight Chapters
by Henry Hitchings, MacMillan, 320pp, £16.99
There have been many biographies of Dr Johnson. Indeed, immediately after his death, it was reported that 11 writers were assiduously at work on them. The most famous, Boswell’s Life, has justly become the standard for its breadth, sympathy and detail – though, as Hitchings rightly points out, Boswell did not spend quite as much time in the company of his mentor and friend as he would like his readers to believe.
Wanting to give his own account an original angle, the author has hit upon the modern fashion for seeking gurus everywhere – even among unlikely long dead writers. As an artificial device, such an approach fails, as it is bound to do. Whoever modelled his own life on that of a writer?
