Memoirs of the life and writings of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson

12mo. f. [1] (blank), pp. [6], 197, [3] (blank). Mottled calf on boards, gilded calf on spine, raised on 4 bars with brown lettering panel. Stamp of of Alexander Gardyne.

In 1785 the Reverend William Shaw exploited Samuel Johnson’s patronage once again, by rushing into print – anonymously, but transparently – with the slight ‘Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late Dr. Samuel Johnson,’ which contains a disproportionately long account of the Ossian controversy, pp. 145-166: here Shaw himself figures largely, and heroically, in third-person citations, and he is almost certainly the author of the four-page letter signed ‘Anti-Ossian,’ supposedly received by Johnson after the publication of Clark’s ‘Answer’ (see Bib# 4103344/Fr# 641). Incidentally, Shaw appears (pp. 39-44) to have given in his ‘Memoirs’ the earliest detailed history of Johnson’s own fabricated Debates in Parliament – perhaps assimilated or taken down, in conjunction with Ossianic discussions, from the horse’s mouth. See also J.L. Clifford, Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson’s middle years. London, 1980, entry 3:18; ESTC, T116648.

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