We heartily welcome the return of this fine scholarly annual after a hiatus of several years caused by the death of publisher Gabe Hornstein in early 2017. Longtime subscribers will notice three changes, only one of which is at all important. The dustcover, present since the volume size was enlarged in 2003 (volume 14), is no more, a negligible price to pay for the resumption, as is the reversion to the original volume size. However, the index, a fixture since the first volume, will be missed. The current volume contains eight contributions, seven of which are reviewed below, two review essays and five book reviews.Susan Kubica Howardâs âThe Curious Case of Charlotte Lennox: Conducting a Professional Literary Life in Eighteenth-Century Britain Outside the Bluestocking Circleâ is a comparison of what seems like every conceivable connection, or lack thereof, between Lennox and the Blues: âLennoxâs choice of literary themes, her politics, her religion, her uncertain social standing, her personal, familial, and financial situations, her directness and candorâall of these put her at odds with the Blues.â Howard, Lennoxâs advocate throughout, writes clearly and can turn a phrase: âHer disordered domesticity would not have been fathomable to most of the Blues.â I find her speculation about political differences, especially during the American Revolution, quite convincing, especially in view of Lennoxâs living in America as a child and sending her son out to America in the early 1790s. And certainly her hardscrabble professional life, a situation that she shared with Samuel Johnson, at least until his pension, would join them as it distanced her from the Bluestockings.Because Howardâs treatment of Johnson and Lennox is one key to her essay, I will point out two instances where details she cites, relying on previous sources, are at least dubious. The party Johnson orchestrated at the Devilâs Tavern to celebrate Lennoxâs first novel may not have been in 1751 but in the previous year. Howard relies on a summary of Sir John Hawkinsâ description, a description in which he errs in the publication date of the novel. The recent scholarly edition of Hawkinsâ biography of Johnson, edited by O M Brack Jr., accepts the view of Duncan Isles that âHawkinsâ date, âthe spring of 1751â is in many respects unacceptable; spring or autumn 1750 appear to be more likely.â More important is the issue of Johnsonâs supposed contribution of a chapter to The Female Quixote, which Howard accepts without comment. Again, a diverging view can be found in Brack, this time his edition of Johnsonâs reviews, prefaces, and ghost-writings (Johnson on Demand [2109]), where he concludes, Johnson âdid not write the penultimate or any other chapter of the book.â Now I do not know whether Brack and others are right or wrong about these things, but Howard should have been aware of these issues and at least noted their existence.Marcus Walsh provides a way via Aristotle to discuss Johnsonâs annotations in âMimesis and Understanding in Samuel Johnsonâs Notes to Shakespeare (1765).â Even while acknowledging the potential flaw in an approach from classical theory to practical, editorial application (âClearly Johnsonâs critical arguments and ideas cannot be described as straightforwardly Aristotelianâ), he largely succeeds in helping us understand exactly what we should do, or at least can do, with Johnsonâs annotations. It is not surprising, of course, to be told that âthe content and rhetoric of Johnsonâs notes repeatedly insist on the general and perpetual truth and application of Shakespeareâs characterization,â but the particular insights, especially of the second half of the essay, are quite useful. Among them is the explanation of Johnsonâs paraphrases within his explication, which clearly differentiates him both from his fellow eighteenth-century editors and from the subsequent, largely Romantic âinsistence on the unique and untranslatable linguistic mode of existence of any worthwhile poem.â Of further interest is Walshâs suggestion that this championing of paraphrase fits comfortably within the âProtestant interpretative custom and tradition,â as opposed to that of Roman Catholics.Walshâs explanation of one of Johnsonâs corrections of Warburton concerning a passage from Measure for Measure is perhaps his best example: âLike many other paraphrases . . . this begins with a specifically textual issue and has a primarily hermeneutic purpose. . . . [H]owever, it includes striking and insistent appeal to shared experience: the truths that Shakespeare relates are such as âneither man nor woman will have much difficulty to tellâ; they are âwhat every one knowsâ and âwhat every one feels.ââ Important too is Walshâs reminder that Johnson was annotating the plays to be read, with the notes at the foot of the page: âJohnsonâs notes are directed at the reader in the closet, not the audience in the theater.âIn âPunitive Injustice in Caleb Williams: Godwinâs Vexed Call for Penal Reform,â Suzanna Geiser finds frequent similarities and one major difference between William Godwinâs 1794 novel and his 1793 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. The explicit subject of the Enquiry is âpenal reformâspecifically, a general prohibition on coercive discipline and a corresponding commitment to noncoercive mediation of problematic behaviors.â Of course, the epitome of coercive discipline is capital punishment, and the existence of over two hundred capital crimes in Britain in the century had garnered contemporary opposition on both moral and pragmatic groundsâsee Samuel Johnson on the topic. But Geiser establishes that theoretical arguments based on deterrence or forced reformation were quite common, and the object of Godwinâs pushback not only in his tract but also in his novel.The best parts of the essay occur near the end, as Geiser discusses the role reversal between the murderer Falkland and his legal nemesis Caleb: âas Caleb pursues âthe truthâ . . . the punishment he inflicts begins to exceed the crime, and Falkland takes on the role of the criminal for whom further punishment becomes an injustice, while Caleb assumes that of the tyrant for whom power and control are intoxicating.â I found unconvincing, however, the attribution to elitism that Godwin and other writers of his day (and perhaps Geiser) made as a primary cause of the unjust system of justice. The example of the French Revolutionâmentioned in the essayâstands in contrast to this generalization, as does the presence of approximately thirty-six capital offenses among the Old Testament Hebrews and twenty-five among the ancient Babylonians. Perhaps it is rather that hard cases make bad law.Most of us share the modern view of the author of the Homeric poems but fewer, perhaps, realize that two eighteenth-century critics, Thomas Blackwell (1701â1757) and Robert Wood (1716/17â1771) largely embraced the same view. In âSensibility Reclaimed: Thomas Blackwell, Robert Wood, and the âConjectural Historyâ of Homer,â Peter M. Briggs demonstrates how these two mid-century critics followed and popularized ideas first casually advanced by Richard Bentley some five decades earlier. Those ideas include the oral rather than written origin of the poems and the historicity of the events at Troy. Briggs would further extend the contributions of Blackwell and Wood. Blackwellâs view of the poet âas both an historian and a seerâ suggests a movement âtoward a new theory of poetic sensibility. . . . [T]he epic bard was becoming a man of feeling.â And Woodâs âbroad reading and extensive travelsâ led to his comparisons of Homer with both ancient and modern poetry of various cultures, âa more ethnographic understanding of the epic as a genre.â Briggs realizes that these are huge claims, especially for a thirteen-page essay, but his calling attention to Blackwellâs and Woodâs roles in the process is welcome.The first two things to notice about Paul Tankardâs âJohnson (and Boswell) in the Lists: A View of Their Reputations, 1933â2018â are its length (forty-two pages including notes) and the pun in the title. The authorâs light touch makes the length easier to digest. He surveys lists with extensive view, from middlebrowâAdlerâs How to Read a Book (1940) and Fadimanâs Lifetime Reading Plan (1960)âto highbrowâBloomâs The Western Canon (1994), includes even âpopâ entries like 1001 Books You Must Read before You Die (2006), and tabulates the appearances, or not, of Johnson and Boswell. Those of us expecting a steady decline in interest in two of our favorites find some surprises. For example, neither is among the 113 authors listed by Adler. From the fact that more lists are formulated by Americans than Brits, Tankard extrapolates, âit is from the United States that come many of the most stridentâand particularly institutionalâefforts to formulate literary canons,â which certainly is one motive for list-making. Other takeaways: âthere is less disparity than I expected to find between the two writers: Johnson appears as a writer on twenty-eight of the fifty-seven [lists], Boswell on twenty-fiveâ; and âBoswell and Johnson do not appear to any noticeable extent more in British or American lists.â Tankard seems not upset at all that neither Johnson nor Boswell appear in The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them (2006): âThe only book chosen by three contributors is To Kill a Mockingbird. . . . Tolstoy and Dante seem not to have changed any lives.âJohnsonâs friendship with printer Edmund Allen is well known, but in âSamuel Johnson and the Allen Familyâ Matthew M. Davis has expanded our knowledge significantly, especially in the area of Johnsonâs unremarked relationship with several other members of the Allen family. Working from a manuscript that he discovered in the Bodleian in 2013 (a family history written in 1865 by Mary Allen Brooke), Davis demonstrates that the majority of what Brooke has to say is verifiable, or at least probable. Davis weighs the evidence scrupulously and establishes, to my satisfaction at least, that three adult members of the Allen familyâEdmund and his cousins John and Charlesâwere known to Johnson. Among other things, the results solve a small mysteryâthe hitherto unidentified âMr. Allen of Magdalen-Hallâ mentioned by Johnson in a letter is John Allenâand may correct another identification. Writing to (probably) Thomas Warton in October 1757 about âsome literary business for an inhabitant of Oxford,â Johnson mentions consulting with âMr. Allenâ about such a scheme. Previously this Allen was thought to be Edmund, but Davis convincingly argues that John Allen is more likely: â[John] was an Oxford don who had resided in Oxford for twenty years, he had worked in the Bodleian Library, and he was said to have looked into more books than most men of his day,â while Edmund did not seem to have received a university education. This is a model factual essay.âMilton at Bolt Courtâ is a beautifully crafted essay, interesting, I would think, to anyone who might pick up the volume. Working from the engraving of Milton by Jacobus Houbraken, owned by Johnson at 8 Bolt Court and now to be seen in Dr. Johnsonâs House, 17 Gough Square, Stephen Clarke traces the provenance of the print, especially through John Hoole (1727â1803) and his family. Clarke is particularly good on the period in late 1784, when âHoole [became] a sort of gatekeeper to Johnsonâs last days.â Working back and forth from the Sale Catalogue of Johnsonâs books, Johnsonâs will, and Hooleâs published narrative of Johnsonâs âLast Illness,â Clarke makes fascinating connections: âIt is surely no coincidence that Hoole should have bought [at the library sale] the set of Clarkâs sermons, one of which Johnson had asked him to read to him little more than ten weeks before.â Two black-and-white illustrations of the etching are included, and the essay is âframedâ by acknowledgment of Johnsonâs divergent views of Milton as a poet and as a man. The etching and books are not the full extent of acquisitions Hoole made from Johnsonâs study. Clarke quotes Thomas Tyersâs biographical sketch published in GM in the month of Johnsonâs death, that his âliterary chair [was] purchased by Mr. Hoole. Relicks are venerable things, and are only not to be worshipped.â Clarke uses this sentence from Tyers as an epigraph to his essay.Age of Johnson rightly gave this essay pride of place: it is first in the volume. I have discussed it last, in order to conclude with this compliment. Other eighteenth-century journals may regard an essay like Clarkeâs (or Davisâs) of interest too limited for their readers, of antiquarian interest only, âfine in its placeâ so long as that place is elsewhere. The editors of AJ properly continue to demonstrate the truth of Terenceâs dictum: homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.