Johnson's Quarrel with Swift:

About the Book

Johnson was very close to Swift in the difficulties he had to face because of his poor health and difficult social positions. Both of these tortured men were able to impose their names on the two phases of 18th century life: The Age of Swift from 1700 to 1740 and the Age of Johnson to 1789. Swift predominated in the age of satire and Johnson in the age of biography and literary criticism.

About the Author

My interest in English literature began when I was eleven years old. My older brother who was stationed in England during the second world war in the American Air Force sent me a stout book containing all the plays of Shakespeare along with miles of commentaries and footnotes to hold for him when he returned from the war. I took the liberty to read and study it, thus earning As in my College English courses, thereafter. At the University of New Mexico, as a teaching assistant working toward a doctorate in English literature, the chairman of the department, a distinguished eighteenth century scholar, Hoyt Trowbridge, invited me into his graduate seminar class to study the writings of Swift, Pope, and Johnson. Aside from major similarities I was struck by the attitude of Samuel Johnson towards his fellow religionist, Jonathan Swift. From my examination of Johnson's "prejudice" against Swift came my doctoral dissertation. "Johnson's Quarrel with Swift." I was told by Donald Greene, one of my research advisers, that I would have no trouble having each of my chapters published as articles. That was in 1968. Now in 2013 I can hope to see it sold as a book by AuthorHouse. I met my wife Vita in New York City after I returned from the Southwest as a doctor of English literature and philosophy. She told me she had always wanted to see Grand Canyon. So, on our Honeymoon trip around the country we stopped in at the North Rim of the Canyon and hiked across to the South Rim. We then took an airplane and flew back over the Canyon to the North Rim for our parked car. Later, we relocated to Phoenix, Arizona where we have resided for the past thirty years.