This was published in the September 2006 Johnsonian News Letter and contains a holiday letter Sharon wrote to Albrecht Strauss in 1989:

27 February 2006

Dear Bob,

Sharon Gilbert, one of my all-time favorite graduate students, died suddenly and unexpectedly a few weeks ago in Los Angeles, where she had gone after taking her Ph.D. orals in English at Chapel Hill. Her hope was to set out on a career in “writing” (preferably, I believe in Hollywood) while, more or less at the same time, completing her dissertation on James Boswell’s journals. Well, I don’t really know how successful she was with the first; but there can be no question that eventually she did an outstanding job with the second. Her dissertation was superb—not only extremely per­ceptive but also (which is even more unusual!) extraordinarily well-written. All this happened a good many years ago.

The enclosed epistle may convey some of that excellence. Short though it may be, would it be of interest, do you think, to the readers of the Johnsonian News Letter? Needless to say, I’d be thrilled to see it in print—now more than ever.

With warm regards always,

Sincerely yours,

ALBRECHT STRAUSS

Herewith is the letter, which indeed readers of this journal will find both interesting and delightful.

December 26, 1989

Dear Dr. Strauss,

Hope your family will have a healthy, happy new year with none of the rude shocks and scares of the previous one!

Just wanted you to know I joined the Southern California Johnson Society. They had a huge elegant dinner. First thing you know, the speaker of the evening gave a lecture attacking Boswell!!!

ANYWAY—the lecture was everything you taught me a scholarly paper should not be. Not only did the guy give unsubstantiated arguments, he never pre-considered any possible objections to his thesis. The lecture basically said that when Boswell claimed he was reproducing Johnson’s conversation, he couldn’t possibly have done so because no writer can do that. So Boswell was fibbing. Boswell explained his ability by saying he got into the “Johnsonian ether,” and the lecturer questioned what that might be, and referred to it snidely.

After the lecture I decided not to confront the lecturer, which would have been like stepping on a homeless person. I instead went for Donald Greene!!! Of course I know his fame but had never met him before; however, he had been pointed out to me by a lot of people at the lecture as “someone who doesn’t like Boswell very much.” I began telling him my objections to the lecture. My basic proof was the movies of John Wayne! (“We are talking about the real John Wayne,” said Professor Greene elegantly, meaning John Wayne, not John Wain - happy coincidence!) After somehow digressing into movies in which John Wayne was un-John Wayne-like (Professor Greene mentioned Red River; I mentioned The Searchers), we eventually got back to the point. I informed Dr. Greene that when John Wayne was alive, two people would write all his scripts. First was the scriptwriter, a person who changed from script to script. Then there was the “John Wayne specialist,” the one man who was able to change all of John Wayne’s dialogue so that the character spoke just like John Wayne was supposed to speak. Did this man not enter the “Waynian ether”? Therefore, even Hollywood philosophically recognized—that means, they actually paid money for the talent to reproduce conversational style accurately.

I then went on to the formal style of Johnson’s hundreds (or thousands?) of personal letters, none of which were referred to in the lecture, and the fact that Johnson might have spoken more formally to Boswell because Boswell needed and expected him to. Dr. Greene was very, very impressed by my arguments. He kept saying, over and over, “That’s a good point, that’s excellent!” To everyone’s amazement, including mine, he kept questioning me for about 20 minutes. Everybody stood around us in a circle, terribly impressed that Dr. Greene was impressed with me, whoever I was.

Then, at the end—if I understood him correctly—he said he hadn’t changed his mind at all!

“EVEN POTTLE,” he said, doubted Boswell’s claims. I had to agree that Pottle was God himself it’s hard to argue against Pottle.

But I was of course totally bowled over by Dr. Greene’s incredibly vast erudition.

At any rate—just want you to know—I am ready to defend Boswell anywhere—any time—and now you see—to anyone!

Have a happy holiday.

Love,

SHAR.