Emerging clearly in the essays are the dual concerns—artistic and intellectual—that can be pursued in Johnson's biographical writings. On the one hand, they are complex creative works that reward literary analysis, traditional and modern. On the other, with their wide range, they offer a special insight into Johnson's eighteenth-century world—the state of biography at the time, the tradition of English poetry, literary criticism and its philosophical values, and, of course, Johnson himself with his powers and failings.
Domestick Privacies thus offers important new perspectives not only to professed Johnsonians but to all who study biography, criticism, and the eighteenth century.
David Wheeler is associate professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi.