My personal blog is here. For more about me regarding this site, read on.

My name is Frank Lynch. I'm just an amateur scholar: I didn't major in English and I never taught it.

I have an interest in Johnson because so much of what he said and wrote is just plain sensible; I started this website back in 1997 as a way of "giving back" -- in the hopes of offering easy access for those who might only have slight interest in Johnson or what he said. Books about Johnson look big and are perhaps intimidating to some. Naturally, I hope that your visit here will lead to a deeper interest in Johnson.

I've more or less set this site up to be complementary to Jack Lynch's Samuel Johnson website. (We're not related, if you're curious.) At his site you'll find some complete texts, a thorough discussion of the available editions, and a better biography.

Some people have asked how I found the time for this massive undertaking. One quote from Johnson seems particularly applicable here:

"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and the last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings."
Johnson: Rambler #43 (August 14, 1750)

You probably haven't seen much of the site on your visit here, so I hope you'll bookmark it and come back.