Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age

A fascinating portrait of a radical age through the writers associated with a London publisher and bookseller—from William Wordsworth and Mary Wollstonecraft to Benjamin Franklin

Once a week, in late eighteenth-century London, writers of contrasting politics and personalities gathered around a dining table. The veal and boiled vegetables may have been unappetising but the company was convivial and the conversation brilliant and unpredictable. The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookse...