Immortal Memories

Literary commemorations give Clement King Shorter an occasion to discuss writers, their friendships, and the places that preserve their memory. This collection brings together addresses delivered to literary societies and commemorative committees, with subjects including Samuel Johnson, George Borrow, George Crabbe, and William Cowper. Shorter also includes Lord Acton's selection of a hundred books, turning the volume toward the practical question of what people choose to read.

The opening address follows Johnson's associations with Lichfield and considers Anna Seward's letters, local literary gatherings, and the actor David Garrick. Elsewhere, Shorter weighs anecdotes about Johnson's ancestry against letters and biographical testimony. His willingness to question a good story gives these talks an argumentative edge. Readers interested in literary biography can follow both the remembered lives and the judgments through which later admirers keep those lives in view.