{"product_id":"the-life-of-mr-richard-savage","title":"The Life of Mr Richard Savage","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe Life of Mr Richard Savage\u003c\/em\u003e was the first important book by a then-unknown Grub Street hack, Samuel Johnson. Richard Savage (1697—1743) was a poet, playwright, and satirist who claimed to be the illegitimate son of a late earl and to have been denied his inheritance and viciously persecuted by his mother. He was urbane, charming, a brilliant conversationalist, but also irresponsible and impulsive. His role in a tavern brawl almost led him to the gallows, though his life was saved by an eleventh-hour pardon by the King. Over time he attracted many supporters, practically all of whom he managed to alienate by the time of his death in a debtors’ prison in Bristol. Johnson, who had been friends with Savage for a little over a year, drew on published documents and his own memories of Savage to produce one of the first great English biographies.\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nThe edition is supplemented by other writings by Johnson, a selection of Savage’s prose and verse, contemporary and posthumous responses to Savage and to Johnson’s biography, and selections by Johnson’s first two major biographers, Sir John Hawkins and James Boswell.\n\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Broadview Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":66233395839325,"sku":null,"price":26.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1041\/3893\/2573\/files\/9781554811557.jpg?v=1792202424","url":"https:\/\/shop.gazellebookservices.co.uk\/products\/the-life-of-mr-richard-savage","provider":"Gazelle Book Services","version":"1.0","type":"link"}