“There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.”
The Samuel Johnson Society of the West (SJSW) is a non-profit society dedicated to the appreciation and study of the writings and life of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
Membership is open to all persons interested in conversation and discourse about the life and writings of Johnson, his circle, and the history and culture of his century. Dues-paying members meet for the annual dinner at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. The dinner features the Daniel G. Blum Memorial Lecture, delivered by an internationally recognized Johnson scholar or collector of Johnsoniana.
Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1775)
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Kate Chisholm, the author of Wits and Wives: Dr. Johnson in the Company of Women and Fanny Burney: Her Life will deliver the thirty-first Daniel G. Blum Memorial Lecture at the society’s annual meeting 11 October 2026. Ms. Chisholm has also published biographical essays on the Burney family (in The Cambridge Companion to Frances Burney) and Mary Wollstonecraft (in Mary Wollstonecraft in Context). Most recently, she edited Letters to Sophia: The Afterlives of Hester Thrale.
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