It was a dark and stormy night, but the lights were shining, hot drinks available, and the fires were taking the edge off a Melbourne winter evening as the JSA assembled for its 14^th Annual Seminar on July 6 at the English-Speaking Union.

The JSA was very well represented at the recent conference held at Pembroke College, Oxford on June 21-23 when some 50 ardent Johnsonians gathered to consider the topic of “Johnson and the Theatre”. The JSA members present were Barrie and Fay Shepherd and John Byrne. 

Over the three days the participants were given a superb insight into 18^th century theatre in all its aspects, from the formality of Drury Lane under Garrick to the fringe theatre of Southwark Fair, with its rowdy and riotous behaviour of the audience (who seemed to be as much a part of the spectacle as they were spectators) and the ever present prostitutes and pimps who made the theatre crowds their willing prey. 

The 14th annual seminar of the JSA was held at the English Speaking Union in Melbourne on Saturday June 17. A feature of the program was a rehearsed reading of  Johnson’s play Irene by a cast from the Shakespeare Society, and among the papers was a stirring account of the female gladiators and boxers of 18th Century London, by Genny Gebhardt, who travelled from Seattle in the US to speak at the seminar.

Rusi Khan, one of the JSA’s founding members, died on 15 February after a short battle with cancer. Rusi, a Parsee Indian, was educated in Bombay, and then London University where he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis on the freedom of the will. From there he took a lectureship in Singapore, and eventually a position in the Philosophy Department at Monash in 1965. He retired from Monash in 1994. 

The Johnson Society of Australia now has a new President, following the retirement, under the JSA’s constitution, of Professor Clive Probyn after four years in the presidency.

A review by Paul Tankard

Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays, ed. David Womersley (Penguin Classics, 2003). RRP A$19.95

Scholars and book collectors have always had some sort of access to Samuel Johnson’s essays, but this is the first popular edition of his most characteristic mode of writing since 1957, when a volume of selections from The Rambler was published in the famous Everyman’s Library.  For a newcomer wanting to read the best of Johnson, this book is a must.