“Keeping Boswell in Constant Repair" is the title of Gordon Turnbull’s 2014 Fleeman Memorial Lecture. He explains: The popularity of Boswell's Life of Johnson somehow manages to survive the assaults,…

There will be a new venue for the 2014 JSA Annual General Meeting and David Fleeman Lecture, to be given by our Patron Dr Gordon Turnbull, on October 25.

The AGM will begin at 3.30pm sharp, and the Fleeman Lecture at 5pm.

The meeting will be held at Tonic House, 386 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, between Queen Street and Market Street. Trams serve both Flinders Street and Collins Street from either Southern Cross or Flinders St stations.

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The fascinating story of Four Oaks Farm, where for over 60 years Donald and Mary Hyde built the great Johnson Collection, now held at Harvard, was a feature of the JSA’s 2014 seminar, held on July 5.

The paper was given by John Byrne, President of the JSA who corresponded with Mary Hyde for twenty years, and served with her as Governor of Dr Johnson’s House. Last year at the Houghton Library, Harvard, he was given private access to the Hyde treasures. (more…)

Kate Burridge: “Magnificence of Promise”: Johnson, advertising and the anodyne necklace

The 2013 Annual Seminar of the JSA will be held on Saturday July 6 at the English Speaking Union, 146 West Toorak Road, South Yarra, starting at 11 am. Doors open…

Members are reminded that subs for 2013-2014 are due on 1 July this year.

Following a decision at last year’s AGM, a new category, Household Membership, will be introduced to cover more than one person living at the same address.

Fees for the coming year are therefore as follows:

• Individual membership: $50.00
• Individual concession (pensioners, students): $40.00
• Household membership: $75.00
• Household concession: $65.00 (more…)

A memorial by Bryan Reid

October 9, 2013 will mark the 20th anniversary of the foundation of The Johnson Society of Australia, at the end of a seminar at the Council of Adult Education, Melbourne.

The birth of the JSA was a somewhat prolonged, but enjoyable process. It had begun two years earlier, at a similar CAE seminar when I first met the three who helped provide the impetus for getting an Australian Johnson Society off the ground.

They were the late Dr Rusi Khan, then Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Monash University, Prof Clive Probyn,  then Head of English at Monash and Dr John Wiltshire (now Professor Emeritus) then Senior Lecturer in English at Latrobe University. (more…)

Minutes of the 2012 AGM are available as a PDF file here.

Our eighteenth Annual Fleeman Memorial Lecture was given at the 2012 AGM by inaugural President, Emeritus Professor Clive Probyn. Clive is a renowned international scholar of the 18the Century, specialising in Jonathon Swift and Dr Johnson.

He has also done distinguished scholarly work editing the novels of Australia’s Henry Handel Richardson, and is the winner of the prestigious Centennial Medal for Service to English and Australian Literature. He has published more than 20 books.

Clive treated members and friends to an engaging, scholarly account of Johnson’s and Swift’s view of Wales and the Welch, as revealed in their travel writings and letters.

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