An appreciative audience enjoyed the new program format for the Johnson Tercentenary Seminar and Dinner on July 25.
A reading by Bronwen Hickman from Fanny Burney’s diaries separated two excellent papers by Barrie Sheppard and Geoff Brand, which provided different, but resonating, insights into 18th Century concepts of nature, the problem of evil, based on Soames Jenyns’ letters on the Origin of Evil, and the idea of nature’s productions forming a “Great Chain of Being”.
John Wiltshire’s paper, The Afterlife of Dr Johnson, was a fitting prelude to John Byrne’s official launching of our President’s latest work, The Making of Dr Johnson.