My Sam Johnson

Wayne discusses the reasons he is interested in Sam Johnson as a subject for biography.

Wayne reads and comments on three letters written by Sam Johnson.

Wayne relates some funny anecdotes from the life and marriage of Tetty and Sam, and makes some final comments about empathy and biography.

Wayne reads from the prayers that Sam Johnson wrote a few weeks after the death of his wife in 1752.

Wayne talks about Sam's eating practices and how they relate to his character, as well as how he ended up singeing his wigs so often.

Wayne discusses Sam Johnson's writing style and his plans to try to encourage more reading of Johnson in the biography that he's writing.

Examples of a couple of Sam's prayers and how they illustrate his character and mindset.

Sam gets married in 1735 to a widow named Elizabeth ("Tetty") Jervis, and for a year or so they try to get him set up as a teacher.

Wayne consults Sam Johnson's dictionary, published in 1755, to see if it contains a definition or a use of the phrase "in terms of" as we use it today – and ends with a brief summary of the state of digitization of this dictionary.

Sam defends himself against a fraud poet who claimed that he (the poet) had translated the poems of a 3rd-century poet named Ossian. Sam said they were fakes – and they did turn out to be so.