Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784

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Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was one of the leading literary figures of eighteenth-century England. He is best remembered for compiling the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language, published in 1755. Prominent among his diverse other works, he also wrote the satirical History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759), edited The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare (1765), and produced the important Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets (first collected in 1781). He wrote the bulk of the essays released in periodical form as The Rambler (1750-1752) and The Idler (1758-1760). A native of Lichfield, Johnson attended Oxford in 1728 and 1729, but left without receiving a degree. He married the widow Elizabeth Porter (1688-1752) in 1735; they had no children together. Johnson resided primarily in London from 1737 onward, although he continued to maintain a house in Lichfield. He received an honorary M.A. from Oxford in 1755, and honorary LL.D. degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1765 and from Oxford in 1775. He supported himself modestly from his literary endeavors until being granted an annual pension in 1762. He was memorialized in James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), generally regarded as an early landmark of the biographical craft. From the guide to the Samuel Johnson letters, 1731-1784., (Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University)

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Birth 1709-09-18

Death 1784-12-13

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