Johnson continues to offer fresh challenges and pleasures to both new and seasoned readers. This introduction sketches in some essential characteristics of Johnson as a companion, and as a critical thinker whose contemplation of time, human limitations, suffering, and the formative powers of language make him unusually contemporary – in short, a writer for life amidst a global pandemic. Drawing on his poetics of memory in Rambler 41, his remarks on Shakespeare’s King Lear, Pope’s last days, the folly of the heroic, Soame Jenyns’s metaphysics, and human failure in Rasselas, Greg Clingham suggests how Johnson engages with questions of self-knowledge, social justice (e.g., the education of women, the treatment of animals, capital punishment), and some of the political issues of the day (e.g., slavery and colonialism). In conclusion, the introduction describes the principles governing the chapters in this book, which honor the centripetal, seamless, and flexible manner of Johnson’s thinking and writing.

Johnson’s stand against prejudice is reflected in the critical and editorial aspects of his “Shakespeare.” His editions contain the distinguished Preface and notes and express Johnson’s dialogue with earlier editions. This chapter considers Johnson on the methods of Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton and suggests the collaborative nature of Johnson’s contributions. Defending “the dull duty of an editor,” Johnson concedes the task is impossible, and his later editions display second thoughts, generally favoring conservative readings. Johnson’s notes are varied and clarify meanings through paraphrase, with examples from Measure for Measure and Othello, the latter exemplifying Johnson’s sensitivity to female suffering. The central criterion of Johnson’s criticism – “general nature” – is then addressed. The essay concludes with detailed analysis of the death of Cardinal Beaufort from Henry VI Part 2, a scene heavily marked up by Johnson in his Warburton and described as “scarcely the work of any pen but Shakespeare’s.”