According to Queeney

“A dark, often hilarious and deeply human vision” of the last years in the life of Dr Johnson—“a major literary accomplishment” (Margaret Atwood).

After suffering a nervous breakdown as a result of completing his major work—the first ever Dictionary of the English Language—Samuel Johnson, the most celebrated man of English letters, is invited by his friend Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer, to recuperate with him and his family at their country estate. Here the melancholic, middle-aged lexicogr...