Once a week, in late eighteenth-century London, writers of contrasting politics and personalities gathered around a dining table. The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookseller: a man at the heart of literary life. In this book, Daisy Hay paints a 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.
Hugely engrossing ... Hay’s book has its longueurs, and some of its literary judgments are mind-boggling ... For all that, Dinner with Joseph Johnson is an exciting blend of ideas and personalities.
This delightful book by the English literature professor Daisy Hay, who has also written biographies of the Romantics and the Disraelis, gives the reader the feeling of being at a rather elevated party.
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 centre of his circle ... From certain angles, despite Hay’s best endeavours, Johnson remains opaque ... A cautiously balanced account.