RaveThe Literary Supplement (UK)Compelling and magnificent study ... Hay is a generous and engaging guide, casting personalities in a sympathetic light even as she exposes their frailties ... Hay’s absorbing and immensely attractive book is rooted in a dazzling array of author biographies and published and unpublished correspondence. Beautifully written, it wears its research lightly and is as immersive and engaging as a multi-plot Victorian novel. In leavening the historical record with imagination, her portrait of Johnson’s friendship network does not diminish the romantic gloss ... Dinner with Joseph Johnson is an admirable achievement of biography and humanistic imagination.
