num_pages: 488
description: The story of the group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers artists and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavernNamed one of the 10 Best Books of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review  A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019  A Kirkus Best Book of 2019 Damrosch brings the Clubs redoubtable personalitiesthe brilliant minds the jousting wits the tender camaraderieto vivid life. New York Times Book ReviewMagnificently entertaining. Washington Post In 1763 the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turks Head Tavern in London to dine drink and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke Adam Smith Edward Gibbon and James Boswell. It was known simply as the Club. In this captivating book Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant competitive and eccentric cast of characters. With the friendship of the odd couple Samuel Johnson and James Boswell at the heart of his narrative Damrosch conjures up the precarious exciting and often brutal world of late eighteenthcentury Britain. This is the story of an extraordinary group of people whose ideas helped to shape their age and our own.
language: English
title: The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
publisher: Yale University Press