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Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age Hardcover – November 15, 2022

by Daisy Hay (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 30 ratings
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A fascinating portrait of a radical age through the writers associated with a London publisher and bookseller―from William Wordsworth and Mary Wollstonecraft to Benjamin Franklin

Once a week, in late eighteenth-century London, writers of contrasting politics and personalities gathered around a dining table. The veal and boiled vegetables may have been unappetising but the company was convivial and the conversation brilliant and unpredictable. The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookseller: a man at the heart of literary life. In this book, Daisy Hay paints a remarkable portrait of a revolutionary age through the connected stories of the men and women who wrote it into being, and whose ideas still influence us today.

Johnson’s years as a publisher, 1760 to 1809, witnessed profound political, social, cultural and religious changes―from the American and French revolutions to birth of the Romantic age―and many of his dinner guests and authors were at the center of events. The shifting constellation of extraordinary people at Johnson’s table included William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Benjamin Franklin, the scientist Joseph Priestly and the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, as well as a group of extraordinary women―Mary Wollstonecraft, the novelist Maria Edgeworth, and the poet Anna Barbauld. These figures pioneered revolutions in science and medicine, proclaimed the rights of women and children and charted the evolution of Britain’s relationship with America and Europe. As external forces conspired to silence their voices, Johnson made them heard by continuing to publish them, just as his table gave them refuge.

A rich work of biography and cultural history, Dinner with Joseph Johnson is an entertaining and enlightening story of a group of people who left an indelible mark on the modern age.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    536 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  4. Publication date
    November 15, 2022
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0691243964
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0691243962
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction"

"Enthralling. . . . Dinner with Joseph Johnson is more than a richly detailed character profile: It also comprises a sharply realized group portrait of those whom Johnson wined, dined and gave voice to."---Malcolm Forbes, Wall Street Journal

"[A] compelling and magnificent study. . . . Dinner with Joseph Johnson is an admirable achievement of biography and humanistic imagination."---Kathryn Sutherland, Times Literary Supplement

"Hay has produced an enlightening biography. Her detailed portrait of Johnson illuminates the considerable risks faced by a London publisher bold enough to defy the repressive laws issued by the nervous British government at a time when revolution seemed worryingly likely to spread from France to England."---Miranda Seymour, New York Review of Books

"Hugely engrossing. . . . An exciting blend of ideas and personalities."---John Carey, Sunday Times

"Dinner with Joseph Johnson evokes the noise and excitement of an age characterized by the unceasing hum of literary debate. . . . A fitting reflection of the period that Hay describes: a time when the written word could make someone’s name―or cost them their liberty."---Francesca Peacock, Financial Times

"Hay's meticulously researched biography, rich in period and personal detail, sheds light on both Johnson the man and the vibrant cultural world he inhabited."---Hannah Beckerman, The Guardian

"Hay makes the most of a vivid period in English and especially London history. Her carefully poised study puts Johnson, today an obscure figure, back at the center of his circle."---Rosemary Hill, London Review of Books

"[A] delightful book."---​​​​​​​Emma Duncan, The Times

"Dinner with Joseph Johnson is a portrait of literary ferment. . . . [It] reminds us of the excitement of a period in which inherited orthodoxies were forensically scrutinised and found lacking. And it offers us pause for thought."---Matthew Dennison, The Telegraph

"As a bookseller, Johnson’s lists ranged widely, covering topics such as cookery, gardening, education and theology alongside the bread-and-butter of politics and poetry. Hay’s book follows Johnson’s lead. The result is equal parts panoramic and kaleidoscopic, marching along some of the less-trod paths of the Romantic era."---Joseph Hone, History Today

"[An] illuminating account. . . . Hay’s is a fascinating take on the intellectual and political development of the time. Fans of literary history will relish this opportunity to pull up a seat at Johnson’s table." ― Publishers Weekly

"Dinner with Joseph Johnson is a beautifully packaged, skillfully written and detailed book that finally gives this gentle revolutionary the recognition he deserves."---Jacqueline Riding, Country Life

"A panorama of the intellectual life of a Revolutionary age. . . . This is a perfect bedside book." ― Choice Reviews

Review

“We usually think of the Romantic revolution in terms of its writers, from Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge in poetry to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin in politics. But writers need publishers and booksellers. In this regard, Joseph Johnson was the man who made the revolution possible. Daisy Hay has had the inspired idea of reading Romanticism through the prism of the ‘three o’clock dinners’ where he brought the literary world together. The result is truly a biography of the spirit of the age.”―Jonathan Bate, author of Radical Wordsworth

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press (November 15, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 536 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691243964
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691243962
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 30 ratings

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Daisy Hay

Daisy Hay

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
30 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Paula L. Stepankowsky
5.0 out of 5 stars Invitation to a Brilliant Dinner Party
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2023
Verified Purchase
Reading this book is like attending a dinner party with all the people from late 18th-century Britain whom you would like to meet in heaven. Publisher Joseph Johnson gathered many luminaries from the scientific, literary, artistic, political and theological worlds around his table weekly. Hay brilliantly recreates this moment in time so readers feel they, too, are there in the room, listening to Fuseli, Priestly, Darwin, Wollestonecraft, Godwin, Malthus, Davy, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Hays, Barbauld, Edgeworth, etc., etc. , debate the great issues of the day. The book also offers a detailed examination of the book trade in the Georgian era, which makes it interesting to collectors of period antiquarian books. Writing a book like this that combines so many elements into a cogent narrative is difficult, but Hay does it superbly.

Paula L. Stepankowsky
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tom d
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating history of literature, politics, and religion during a revolutionary period.
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2023
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I haven’t finished this book yet but I already want to give it 4 stars. If you’re interested in the history of literature as well as politics and religion it’s a great read. Many characters grace it’s pages from Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestly to Mary Wollstonecraft. It’s set at a time of great upheaval in Europe including the American Revolution and the French Revolution. At the center of this storm is Joseph Johnson, a book publisher who takes risks both financial and political to publish a stream of books that range from the mundane to the subversive. His dining room table was the platform at which these fascinating characters gathered to eat and talk, mostly talk. It made me wish I could pull up a chair as well. The religious suppression of the “deserters”, many of whom became Unitarians, was of particular interest to me.
3 people found this helpful
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Christian Schlect
5.0 out of 5 stars At St. Paul's Churchyard
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2022
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Joseph Johnson, a kind and generous man, was a book publisher over two hundred years ago in London. His story serves Professor Hay like the hub of a wheel with many spokes. Johnson routinely dined with and aided many of the notable liberal men and women of his age, including Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, and Joseph Priestley. Some make brief apparencies here, such as Benjamin Franklin, others we read about in more depth, such as Wollstonecraft.

The historical backdrop is interesting as Johnson's time covered both the American and French Revolutions and the early awakenings of a more enlighten era in terms of social and professional relationships.

A useful bibliography is provided for the reader seeking more detailed knowledge of the many people mentioned in this book.

This is a well-written book, one that Joseph Johnson would have been proud to publish.
4 people found this helpful
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Sue Radom
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellant book
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2023
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I only purchase books that have been reviewed in the New Yorker mag. This book did not disappoint.It is a well written historic novel, one that imparts so much information and gives such a clear picture of the time period.
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Top reviews from other countries

Charles Pargeter
5.0 out of 5 stars A WONDERFUL BOOK
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2024
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There are plenty of historians who can get the facts right. There are fewer who can present those facts in a riveting way. Daisy Hay is one of that that distinguished minority. 'Dinner with Joseph Johnson' is a miraculous blend of scholarship and readability. The author is in complete command of the literary world and the wider political setting of eighteenth century London. At the centre of the book is the benevolent but shrewd publisher and bookseller, Joseph Johnson, who seems to have known every significant writer, artist and scientist of his time. These, frequently his dinner guests, are brought to life just as vividly as he is, so the book becomes a group biography. That is a literary genre which is difficult to pull off. But Daisy Hay manages the challenge magnificently. 'Dinner with Joseph Johnson' bears comparison with Richard Holmes's 'Age of Wonder' and Andrea Wulf's 'Magnificent Rebels'. Which is high praise indeed.
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cazza
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2022
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Just amazing. So evocative of this period.
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