Life of Mr Richard Savage

Samuel Johnson's Life of Mr Richard Savage (1744), short title Life of Savage and full title An Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers, was the first major biography published by Johnson. It was released anonymously in 1744, and detailed the life of Richard Savage, a London poet and friend of Johnson who had died in 1743.^[1] The biography contains many details of Savage's account of his own life, including claims that he was the illegitimate child of a noble family that quickly disowned and abandoned him at birth.

Savage had led a controversial life, and Johnson used the material to try to answer some wider ethical questions.^[1] The text was later included in The Lives of the Poets, published in 1779, and this work is attributed as one of the important steps for Johnson becoming a biographer in his later years. The biography was well received and was the source of early praise for Johnson. This praise has continued 200 years after its original publication, and it has been described as "one of the best short biographies in English".^[2]