Samuel Johnson Collection

This collection contains 21 letters and drawings related to or by English writer Samuel Johnson that were previously bound together in one volume. Items include six letters by Samuel Johnson to various recipients: publisher Thomas Longman (HM 20824); Samuel Richardson (HM 20821); John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (HM 20825); Nathan Wetherell (HM 20826); and two letters to John Taylor (HM 20822, HM 20827), as well as an 1841 letter from Taylor (HM 20823) and notes by Johnson scholar George Birkbeck Hill (HM 40967) about the June 23, 1784, letter from Johnson to Taylor. There are also single letters from Alexander Johnson (HM 20828); William Seward (HM 20829); James Boswell to his daughter (HM 20830); Hester Lynch Piozzi (HM 20831); Sir Joshua Reynolds (HM 20832); and William Cowper (HM 20833) to various individuals (not Samuel Johnson).

There are also seven drawings and one 1916 newspaper clipping. The drawings include an unfinished drawing of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, and others (HM 40960), copies of portraits of Johnson, and images of locations related to Johnson.

Items were originally bound in a folio black straight-grained morocco binding that was disbound in 1975.