author
Samuel Johnson
1691–1773
A lively and eccentric figure of the early 18th-century stage, this Samuel Johnson was known less for polished literary prestige than for sheer theatrical energy. He is best remembered for Hurlothrumbo, a wildly unconventional work that made him a memorable oddity in English drama.
1 Audiobook
Hurlothrumbo : or, The super-natural
by Samuel Johnson
About the author
Born in 1691, Samuel Johnson was an English dancing-master, violinist, dramatist, and performer associated with the theatrical world of the early 1700s. He was a native of Cheshire, and contemporary and later reference works describe him as a colorful showman as much as a writer.
His name is most closely tied to Hurlothrumbo, first performed in 1729, a strange and noisy stage piece that drew attention precisely because it was so unusual. The work was widely noticed in its day and later remembered for its comic excess, helping fix Johnson's reputation as one of the era's more eccentric figures.
He died in 1773. Because he shared his name with the much more famous Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer born in 1709, he is often overlooked today—but this earlier Samuel Johnson still holds a curious place in literary and theatrical history.