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Wits & Wives: Dr Johnson in the Company of Women
Dr Johnson is often thought of as a strident, overbearing conversationalist, a man who famously asserted that 'Women have all the liberty they should wish to have'. But in this revealing book Kate Chisholm argues it is time to consider how Johnson lived his life, not just what he said. She proposes that the heart of the man, the truth of his character, can more clearly be seen via his many - close, generous, equal - relationships with women.
At one end of the spectrum were Johnson's mother Sarah; his 'painted poppet' wife Tetty; and the women, like the prostitute Poll Carmichael and the blind poetess Anna Williams, he took in when they had nowhere else to go. At the other end were Mary Wollstonecraft, who refers to Johnson in Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Hester Thrale, renowned wit and Johnson's 'dear mistress'; Elizabeth Carter, whose translation of Epictetus was an instant bestseller; and many more besides.
By looking again at this controversial figure through the eyes of this extraordinary cast of female characters, we can discover the essential and unexpected Johnson.
At one end of the spectrum were Johnson's mother Sarah; his 'painted poppet' wife Tetty; and the women, like the prostitute Poll Carmichael and the blind poetess Anna Williams, he took in when they had nowhere else to go. At the other end were Mary Wollstonecraft, who refers to Johnson in Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Hester Thrale, renowned wit and Johnson's 'dear mistress'; Elizabeth Carter, whose translation of Epictetus was an instant bestseller; and many more besides.
By looking again at this controversial figure through the eyes of this extraordinary cast of female characters, we can discover the essential and unexpected Johnson.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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March 3, 2021
Having read Norma Clarke’s ‘Johnson’s Women’, a number of biographies of Johnson’s contemporaries and many biographies of Johnson himself; I wasn’t expecting to learn much from ‘Wits and Wives’ - I was wrong.
The book is bracketed by descriptions of a short visit to Johnson from Mary Wollstonecraft. I didn’t know the two had met, nor did I know how aware Wollstonecraft was of Johnson’s work, that despite their radical different views of how to solve humanity’s problems, there was enough in common to provide a meeting that she remembered fondly enough for William Godwin to include in his memory of his wife.
The first two ‘proper’ chapters are my favourite. They tell of Johnson’s relationship with his mother and his wife. Neither tells me very little new in terms of material information but they provide fascinating alternative interpretations of these important relationships. Walter Jackson Bate was dismissive of Johnson’s mother, John Wain accuses her of causing most of Johnson’s future problems (revealing more about his own relationship to his mother than anything else). Chisholm emphasises Sarah Johnson’s strength, fighting for her son’s health and, as a child, teaching him to read and instilling a religion that would both torment and comfort him in his life. She is a far warmer and important figure in this reading - and his embarrassment and separation of her in his later life is a tragedy, not a freedom.
Tetty, often dismisses as a ‘painted poppet’, reading romances and dosing herself on gin and opium, comes is reinterpreted (fairly I feel) as a truly tragic figure. The question was not, ‘why did he marry her?’ but ‘why did she marry him?’ He was a gauche, skeletal figure with depression and nervous twitches, she way a young-ish pretty-ish rich-ish widow - yet she did marry him, lose the relationship of all her children and find herself stranded in a city she hated with a husband who she recognised as a genius, even if no-one else did.
The next few chapters talk about the lives of a number of Johnson’s female contemporaries and his relationships with them. These are nicely written, the author has a lovely informal and welcoming style, but it’s in the Hester Thrale chapter when we get back to some meaty stuff. The chapter spends a long time discussing Johnson’s relationship with her oldest daughter, Queeney. It shows how Johnson’s idea female companions could be those who would idolise him (but not too much) - it also shows how quickly Hester dropped him, almost as if he was part of Mr Thrale’s baggage.
As the book continued, I learnt lots about Frances Reynolds and a little about Hannah Moore and when I was finished, I was very satisfied. This book is at its best when it pays it’s heaviest focus on Johnson’s relationships with women. It isn’t just a soft, ‘Johnson was was nicer to women than you’d think’ narrative - the ways he undermined women are included as much as his support - creating a book that has a fuller and richer view of his relations then I would have expected.
The book is bracketed by descriptions of a short visit to Johnson from Mary Wollstonecraft. I didn’t know the two had met, nor did I know how aware Wollstonecraft was of Johnson’s work, that despite their radical different views of how to solve humanity’s problems, there was enough in common to provide a meeting that she remembered fondly enough for William Godwin to include in his memory of his wife.
The first two ‘proper’ chapters are my favourite. They tell of Johnson’s relationship with his mother and his wife. Neither tells me very little new in terms of material information but they provide fascinating alternative interpretations of these important relationships. Walter Jackson Bate was dismissive of Johnson’s mother, John Wain accuses her of causing most of Johnson’s future problems (revealing more about his own relationship to his mother than anything else). Chisholm emphasises Sarah Johnson’s strength, fighting for her son’s health and, as a child, teaching him to read and instilling a religion that would both torment and comfort him in his life. She is a far warmer and important figure in this reading - and his embarrassment and separation of her in his later life is a tragedy, not a freedom.
Tetty, often dismisses as a ‘painted poppet’, reading romances and dosing herself on gin and opium, comes is reinterpreted (fairly I feel) as a truly tragic figure. The question was not, ‘why did he marry her?’ but ‘why did she marry him?’ He was a gauche, skeletal figure with depression and nervous twitches, she way a young-ish pretty-ish rich-ish widow - yet she did marry him, lose the relationship of all her children and find herself stranded in a city she hated with a husband who she recognised as a genius, even if no-one else did.
The next few chapters talk about the lives of a number of Johnson’s female contemporaries and his relationships with them. These are nicely written, the author has a lovely informal and welcoming style, but it’s in the Hester Thrale chapter when we get back to some meaty stuff. The chapter spends a long time discussing Johnson’s relationship with her oldest daughter, Queeney. It shows how Johnson’s idea female companions could be those who would idolise him (but not too much) - it also shows how quickly Hester dropped him, almost as if he was part of Mr Thrale’s baggage.
As the book continued, I learnt lots about Frances Reynolds and a little about Hannah Moore and when I was finished, I was very satisfied. This book is at its best when it pays it’s heaviest focus on Johnson’s relationships with women. It isn’t just a soft, ‘Johnson was was nicer to women than you’d think’ narrative - the ways he undermined women are included as much as his support - creating a book that has a fuller and richer view of his relations then I would have expected.
April 11, 2013
I enjoy reading about Dr Johnson, one of the greatest characters in British literary history, so I thought I'd buy the book. I was glad I did, because, although I probably learned little new about Johnson himself, I found I understood much more about how he fitted in to the society of the time, and how he related to women. In addition, I learned plenty about how (a few)women were able to function as writers. Some of them I'd barely even heard of, but now wish to read their work.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews