Although most of this book has been written in smooth open
water, it has been through some of life's rapids and eddies: for
paddling with me, I want to thank my family: Ben and Leora, Dot
and Chet, and all my brothers and sisters, congenital and acquired.
Finally, I want to thank Annette, the love of my life. I am continually
surprised and inspired by her strength, humor, and patience.

Portions of this book are based on material that has appeared
elsewhere, and I thank the various publishers listed below for their
permissions. For some of the last section of chapter 2, I have drawn
on "Sexual Difference and Johnson's Brain," Fresh Reflections on
Samuel Johnson, ed. Prem Nath ( Troy: Whitston, 1987), 123-49; and
on a review of Harold Bloom Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell,
which appeared in South Atlantic Review 55 ( May 1990): 143-46.
Much of the second section of chapter 3 appeared in "Locke's Eye,
Adam's Tongue, Johnson's Word: Language, Marriage, and 'The
Choice of Life,';" The Age of Johnson 3 ( 1990): 35-61. That essay also
provided a bit of the conclusion. The third section of chapter 3
contains some traces of "Locke and Beccaria: Faculty Psychology
and Capital Punishment," Executions and the British Experience from
the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century: A Collection of Essays © 1990
by William Thesing with permission of McFarland & Company,
Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640. This essay ap-
peared first as the Joiner Prize essay in Postscripts 5 ( 1988): 1-12, the
journal of the Philological Association of the Carolinas, and I am
especially grateful to the PAC. Some material in chapter 4 is taken
from "Johnson's Rambler and Eighteenth-Century Rhetoric," Eigh-
teenth-Century Studies 19 ( 1986): 461-79.

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