SOURCE: Erwin, Timothy. “Introduction” to The Life of Mr. Richard Savage (1727), by Samuel Johnson, pp. iii-xiii. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1988.

In the following essay, Erwin discusses Samuel Johnson's use of the anonymous 1727 Account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage for his own biography of Savage, arguing that Johnson was often quick to look at some of the more sordid details of his subject's life.

When Richard Savage passed away late in the summer of 1743 his friend Samuel Johnson put other projects aside to begin the biography that would later become the first of the Lives of the Poets. Johnson made known his intention in the August number of the Gentleman's Magazine, and the Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers (hereafter Account) was published the following February.¹ For information regarding the early career, Johnson depended in large part...