Johnson, Samuel

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English lexicographer (writer of dictionaries), author, and critic. He was also a brilliant conversationalist and dominant figure in 18th-century London literary society. His Dictionary (1755) provided the pedigree for subsequent lexicography and remained authoritative for over a century. In 1764 he founded, at the suggestion of the English painter Joshua Reynolds, a club, known from 1779 as the Literary Club, whose members at various times included also the Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke, the Irish dramatist Oliver Goldsmith, the English actor David Garrick, and Scottish writer James Boswell, Johnson's biographer.

Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, the son of a bookseller, Johnson was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. After attempting to become a schoolteacher, he moved to London and initially made a living writing ‘hack’ journalism (writing on demand). He started his Dictionary without proper funds. His prose style is balanced, judicious, and sometimes ponderous, and as a critic he displayed great creative insight. Johnson's first meeting with Boswell was in 1763. A visit with Boswell to Scotland and the Hebrides in 1773 was recorded in A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (1775). Other works include a satire imitating Juvenal, The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), the philosophical romance Rasselas (1759), an edition of Shakespeare (1765), and the classic Lives of the English Poets (1779–81). His edition of Shakespeare is the forerunner of modern scholarly editions and his ‘Preface to Shakespeare’ remains a classic critical essay of permanent value. He viewed art as an important vehicle for the expression of truth and this serious attitude sometimes led to heavy-handed moral instruction, but his well-known wit and humanity are documented in Boswell's classic The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D (1791). Published after his death, Prayers and Meditations (1785) shows Johnson to have been a deeply religious man. It revealed the secret doubts and fears of a man known to the world as defiant and overbearing in argument. He had a tender concern for humanity and a constant generosity towards the poor and unhappy. It also shows his courage in his lifelong battle against ill health.

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