Thank you Netgalley and YUP for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. And thank you Netgalley, YUP and Leo Damrosch for your infinite patience seeing that it took me a year and a month since I was sent this ARC to actually read it. Having read it now, I am baffled at this fact, because this was, unquestionably, one of the most enjoyable reads of life, an instant favourite, and one of those books I will be recommending ad nauseam. I thought no book could top Penelope Hughes-Hallett's [book:The Immortal Dinner: A Famous Evening of Genius and Laughter in Literary London, 1817|2106314], my favourite c18 biography, and yet I was proven mistaken. I am a literary historian and the Johnson's "age" and circle are my area of specialisation and fascination, so I began my journey into The Club having done my homework (which you don't need at all!) so it was all the much more enjoyable. I am not one for lengthy reviews, on the contrary, I like being concise and to the point, and use Goodreads reviews as reference for myself (did I like this book? what did I think of this other one) but I am overwhelmed with joy after reading this and I need to sing its praises.

First of all, The Club is written in plain language and kind narrative voice, make this a very accessible read. Professor Damrosch has a gift to bring back to light people and stories and the streets and lives they populated. He not only tells you about Johnson, he brings you Johnson into the room, you can see him, you can hear him, and suddenly, you are no longer in your room but in the Turk's Head Inn, surrounded by Boswell (who by the way I absolutely loathe), Reynolds, and Goldsmith, the streets are noisy, the smells overwhelming, the candlelight makes it hard to see their faces. This is masterfully accomplished with a fast-paced narrative that combines thorough research into the facts with the most lively and enjoyable anecdotes that bring colour into the story. Damrosch's writing is full of life and colour, it has music and smell, it captures your senses and makes you laugh, it makes you feel compassion, it shares with you your anger. You can't put it down. It is extremely enjoyable and at the same time an astonishing feat in academic history writing. It contains the spirit of the age, the essence of the men and women it depicts, their affection, their conflicts. You will learn a lot, you will enjoy it thoroughly, and you will be left wishing for more.

This was a very interesting peek into the minds and lives of Boswell and Johnson. Where it really stood out was in exploring their connection to some of the other great minds of the era, including some female ones. This could have made for a disjointed narrative, but I thought everything came together well.

“They were great talkers because they knew and did so much, and many of them rose to accomplishments of the highest order. No fewer than seven — Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Gibbon, Adam Smith, and Boswell — made up a constellation of talent that has rarely if ever been equaled.” The Club was started in 1764 by the painter Joshua Reynolds and the writer Samuel Johnson. Membership was strictly limited. Some, but not all, of the men were (or became) famous. They were required to be intelligent and good conversationalists and they met weekly in the Turk’s Head Tavern. The Club evolved over the years, moving to a new locale, admitting additional members and finally morphing into the London Literary Society, which still exists today. But this book covers its early years and primarily focuses on the relationship between Johnson and his friend and biographer James Boswell.

The book not only has mini biographies of club members and others in their circle, but it places them in the context of events and intellectual debates of the day, including religion, the arts, slavery and imperialism. I could have done without the extensive discussion of Boswell’s sex life, but I enjoyed learning about these men. The discussions of David Garrick (actor and manager of a theater company) and the playwrights Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinkley Sheridan were of particular interest to me. I had no idea that programs at Covent Garden and Drury Lane lasted for 5 hours.

The book was thoroughly researched, well written and entertaining. It made me want to read more about some of the characters. I also now want to read “Evelina” by Frances Burney, which was described in this book. I like it when books lead me to other books.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Although I feel like I knew much of this, if you didn't know Johnson or Boswell , this should help: etc .. their lives together and the entirely fizzy time they had together that lit the world and literature , and with historians in attendance too .. and indeed the world shifted, as this book tells it among then it leaked out to rest of their generation. Extremely readable which keeps it light, otherwise too obviously would it trump their lived experiences., which in Johnson's case was fraught with medical and personal problems. It was fun over hearing people gossiping about each other .

When well-read people, intellectuals, and writers get together and talk, there is a domino effect. That is as much true of England as it was of the salons predating the revolution in France. While reading The Club, I wondered at times whether physical proximity is not a necessity and whether social media has not diluted the impact of fine minds coming together since too many cooks clearly spoil the broth. The Club will make a certain sort of reader quite nostalgic while enjoying the experience of being regaled by a very learned writer. Thank you #NetGalley and #Yale University Press

The Club was a dining and drinking society founded in 1763 which met every Friday at the Turk’s Head Tavern in London. Among its members were many of the greatest intellects of the time, from Samuel Johnson to Adam Smith, Joshua Reynolds to Edward Gibbon, Edmund Burke to David Garrick – they are all to be found in this wonderfully entertaining group biography. It’s an excellent introduction to late 18th century literary and intellectual life and a vivid depiction of the men who attended the Club and their multifarious activities and achievements. As a portrait of London society at that particularly time it certainly brings the era and the people to life. Insightful, well-researched, with many illustrations to enhance the text, I found it a thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating read.

An entertaining book for difficult times.

It hits the middle overlapping region of the Venn diagram where the two circles are labelled “About an Interesting Group of Historical Figures” and “Not Depressing”.

If you have only a vague idea who Johnson, Boswell, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, et al., were, the book might be easier going if you skim through the Wikipedia entries for the main characters first. Even the slightest previous acquaintance with these characters will be enough for you to dive right into this book. For my part, long-ago university lit courses on some members of this group were more than enough.

“The Club” as it actually existed was not really a cohesive and consistent enough group to support a unified narrative by itself, so the book tends to go off on tangents based on the careers and personalities of its members. One narrative doesn't have too much to do with another, and the book doesn't really build to a unified theme. However, the individual characters are fascinating and their era is as well, and the writing is good, so I think the author should be given a pass on the unified theme issue.

A completely ill-natured grump might point out that not only Johnson and Boswell, but also Goldsmith, Sheridan, and many of the others in “The Club” were some of the finest writers in the English language. If you wanted to read about them, you actually could read any one of a dozen or more great books written by them – why read a popular history about them instead?

Because sometimes – if you are an average person with limited reading time and the normal amount of distractions – original writings from this period are often filled with too many mystifying references to contemporary events and personalities to be enjoyable. If you have access to one of the few remaining high-quality bookstores or (somewhat more prevalent) university libraries, you may be able to take down competing editions of the authors in question and see which one has the best footnotes, but sadly most of us are not in this position.

In my case, I got distracted looking at free public-domain books for direct Kindle download on evening and allowed myself to download a completely unfootnoted version of Boswell's travel book concerning a trip that he and Johnson took through Scotland. Boswell's book was full of commentary about contemporary personalities and also about a book that Johnson himself wrote on the very same topic many years before (which I had sadly not read). I gave up on the book a quarter of the way through.

In this book, Chapter 14 covers the same period, and is an excellent way to understand and appreciate this episode if you lack the background knowledge of a scholar. It makes the trip fun to read about and calls Johnson's book on this trip “a pioneering essay in geography and sociology, pondering for example why mountain people often resist control from the outside, fragment into competing tribes or clans, and sustain endless feuds.” This sounds like it covers, at least in part, the same territory as contemporary historian and academic James C. Scott, particularly The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, only 200 years early. Could be interesting – I'll probably be satisfying my cheapskate reading fix by downloading the Johnson travel book soon.

Thanks to Yale University Press and Netgalley for a free electronic advance review copy of this book.

The author's painstaking research and attention to detail is obvious in the writing of this book. There were many facts that I only discovered after reading this!

An intellectual history of the late eighteenth century through the lives of some remarkable men

Eighteenth-century England was a lively place! Captain Cook was exploring the South Seas. Playwrights like Richard Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith were writing plays we still enjoy, and David Garrick was acting in them. Adam Smith was inventing modern economics. And so on. Despite the breadth of the innovation, exploration, and accomplishments in that era, though, the cast of characters who played major roles all seemed to know one another! The Club focuses on one small remarkable group of men who gathered for camaraderie and stimulating conversation and uses their lives to open the door onto the big picture of the intellectual life of the period. It is amazing how such a small group could have so much influence in their own time and later. These are practically all names we remember: Samuel Johnson for his dictionary and literary criticism, James Boswell for biography, Edmund Burke for his oratory, Edward Gibbon for his history, Adam Smith for economics, Sir Joshua Reynolds for painting, David Garrick for acting, and even Joseph Banks, who traveled with Captain Cook and later was president of the Royal Society.
Damrosch’s primary emphasis is on Johnson and Boswell, and he devotes about a third of the book to a description of their lives before the Club is formed. The other members each get a chapter, and even in those chapters there is a lot of description of their interaction with Boswell and Johnson. The activities of the Club itself take up only a fairly small part of the book. No matter who or what the subject is at any time, though, Damrosch gives the bigger picture as well, on subjects like religious controversy, matters of class, and similar social issues. There are a lot of a lot of interesting detours. For example, the chapter on Johnson’s early career includes a section on his friendship with several women writers, Elizabeth Carter, whose translation of Epictetus was still being reprinted as late as 1910, and Charlotte Lennox, whose novel The Female Quixote may have been Jane Austen’s inspiration for Northanger Abbey (Austen acknowledged that she loved the book.). There is interesting history of the emergence of the modern magazine during this period and the difficulty of making a living as a writer (Some things never change.).
The Club provides a vivid narrative picture, so it is only fitting that it should include illustrations provided by the art of the day. Damrosch describes the many artworks that are shown in the book, which was very helpful, because he explains the significance of small details in the pictures that the reader could miss or not understand and also because, in the Kindle edition at least, the details were not legible, even when I enlarged the picture to full-screen size. , e.g., fig. 6 is a picture of Edward Cave holding a letter addressed to him at St. John’s Gate, a significant location.
At its best The Club is a fascinating broad sweeping portrait that also teems with delightful factoids and sidebars. It quotes extensively from sources contemporary to (and some earlier than) the Club members and from sources contemporary to Damrosch. At its worst it is annoying or confusing, as Damrosch cannot help sharing his genuinely encyclopedic knowledge of history. For example, when Damrosch describes Johnson’s friendship with writer Charlotte Lennox he tells us that Johnson organized a party for her when her first novel was published in 1751 at the Devil Tavern, which had been a favorite of Ben Jonson, who died in 1637. He then goes on to quote Ben Jonson’s friend Drummond about Jonson’s fondness for drink. Why are we talking about Ben Jonson? In another section he discusses how Boswell’s journal shows his early skill at bringing social events to life and says he “happened to meet a retired attorney at a dinner party [who] sings Tarry Woo with the English accent”. Damrosch then tells us that Tarry Woo is one of the few songs that Sir Walter Scott was willing to sing in company. I thought “Was Scott an attorney? I thought he lived later than that”. Scott was not born until 1771. So why was he mentioned here? When I see detours like this I then look to see how they tie into the subject, but often they are simply Damrosch sharing his love of information.
Readers who expect a tightly focused history of The Club based on the book title may be disappointed. If you want to enjoy it, I recommend that you approach it as Damrosch does his description of the artwork in the book: there is a lot going on, and sometimes you need to see the little details in order to get the big picture.
My thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for an advance review copy of this book.

The Club was a group of polymaths who met in an inn once a week in the second half of the 1700s. Made up of actors, artists, intellectuals and writers, many of the members were people who remain well known to this day; Johnson, Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith amongst others. I was expecting this book to be about the meetings themselves and what they entailed and discussed during these however rather it was a book of biographies of the members. Damrosch takes each club member and provides information on their lives, work and idiosyncrasies as well as giving the reader information on the social, cultural and political history of the time. The book uses a range of sources including the club members journals, work, letters, quotes and Johnson’s own definitions of words within the dictionary he compiled. Damrosch has researched well and places the sources, events and people themselves into context for the time thus providing an extra layer that biographies often miss out and lead to the misinterpretation of information. Furthermore the paintings, drawings and cartoons that are peppered throughout the book really help to give the reader a mental picture of both the club members and the historical setting.


I found this a fascinating read. Damrosch is clearly a skilled biographer. He is able to present the information in a very readable and clear manner and while the book is fairly long it does not read so. While I would have preferred a bit more balance between the members of the club (there is a large focus on Johnson and Boswell) and mentions of Rousseau and Voltaire who were not part of the club take up far more page space than many of the members this nevertheless was incredibly insightful. A perfect read for people who have knowledge of the club members and want to find out more about them or equally know very little but would like to begin researching. A book I am sure I will reread.

Thank you to Net Galley and Yale University Press for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Damrosch's book covers the life and times of The Club, a group formed by eight men in 1763 that met in the Turk's Head Tavern. The story begins with events that led to the first meeting and ends with the death of James Boswell. The Club continues today under the name London Literary Society. Damrosch blends illustrations and photographs/etchings to bring the story to life. While the book is dense and dry at times, it was a very educational and entertaining read.

Thank you NetGalley and Yale University Press for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy.

In the second half of the eighteenth century a remarkable group of men met weekly in the Turk’s Head Tavern in London. Known simply as The Club, the group included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon.

This book traces the fortunes of those men as well as some of the talented women who were their friends and supporters like the writers Fanny Burney, Hannah Moore, and Charlotte Lennox, and the woman on whom Johnson came to depend more than anyone else, Hester Thrale.

Leo Damrosch is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature Emeritus at Harvard University but this is not a book for a closeted academic readership. With an eye for the telling detail and the emblematic anecdote, Damrosch brings the world of eighteenth century literary London vividly to life. It's a world populated by brilliant but flawed individuals beset by all the difficulties of class, sex, age, religion, and health, whose impact upon society is still felt today, and the author succeeds in making them wonderfully recognisable

Compelling reading for the intellectually curious, The Club is entertaining, vividly drawn and often genuinely moving.