The original and imaginative portrait of Dr Johnson—the man and the writer—gets behind his public face and uncovers the human struggle out of which Johnson's moral view of life emerged. The author presents a challenging reading of the essays and , unveiling the presence in these works of Johnson's inner life. Convincing and persuasive, it is an approach which flies in the face of established critical fashions and preconceptions and which reveals Johnson in a completely new light.