Richard Savage's main claim to fame was Samuel Johnson's biography which claimed that he was as illegitimate child descended from a noble line forced into poverty and misery by a mother whose sole aim and purpose in life was his destruction, Savage was a friend of Johnson's but this biography is disbelieved by most scholars and now has been discredited.

Richard Savage wrote two poems; The Bastard (1728) and The Wanderer (1729), and two comedies.

In 1727 he killed a man in a tavern brawl and was sentenced to death but was later pardoned. He died in poverty.