Johnson's Prefaces and Bell's Connected System of Biography
Johnson's Prefaces and Bell's Connected System of Biography
This chapter examines Johnson's prefaces and Bell's connected system of biography. Under the connected system of biography, Bell claims that the lives together would form a type of literary history enabling readers to evaluate the characteristics of a class of writers in tandem with the products of their creativity. Bell borrowed heavily from sources as shown in Johnson's prefaces. The biographical half of the plagiarized preface was a jigsaw combination of elements from Johnson and Biographia Britannica. Rather than face this formidable legal challenge, Bell cut his losses, and withdrew the offending preface from sale. While Bell acquainted his reader ‘at once with the poet and the man’, his creation lacked a uniform biographical approach and a consistent critical voice. But if the system is taken to mean ‘any combination of many things acting together’, as Johnson defined the term, then Bell's lives fit the bill.
Keywords: Magnum nomen, Johnson's prefaces, system of biography, Biographia Britannica, Bell's lives
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