Samuel Johnson
1709-1784
Samuel Johnson was a British lexicographer, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and poet. His Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, had a far-reaching impact on the development of English lexicography and dictionary-making. It had 40,000 words and 116,000 quotations illustrating their use. It became well known its lively style, its political bias, and its erudite citations from literature. It took nine years for Johnson and his six paid assistants to complete. Johnson’s Dictionary served its readers as a word-book or lexicon as well as an encyclopedia, reflecting Johnson’s period in British history and contributing to it.
Samuel Johnson also wrote essays, created an annotated edition of William Shakespeare's plays, served as editor of several literary journals and was author of the widely read novel Rasselas.
Johnson was a devout Anglican, a committed Tory, and the subject of what has become a famous biography about him written by James Boswell (1787). He was a follower of John Locke in that he was a dualist, subscribing to a separation between body and mind, which he referred to as body and soul. He differed from other contributors to enlightenment thinking in that he held strongly to religious explanations for human action, whereas others of the enlightenment subscribed to natural science for their explanations of human nature (Porter, 2003, p. 169).
Writings of Samuel Johnson
Johnson, Samuel (1823). The Adventurer. From "The Works of Samuel Johnson," volume 11 of 12.
Johnson, Samuel. Sir Francis Drake (1903). The works of Samuel Johnson. Literary Club, volume 14. Troy, New York.
Johnson, Samuel (1903). The False Alarm. The Works of Samuel Johnson; Literary Club, volume 14; Troy, New York (1903).
Johnson, Samuel (1811) Johnson Idler essays. Durell's Edition. New York.
Johnson, Samuel (1903). A Journey to the Hebrides. The Works of Samuel Johnson; Literary Club, volume 15; Troy, New York.
Johnson, Samuel. (1903).The Patriot. The Works of Samuel Johnson; Literary Club, volume 14; Troy, New York (1903).
Johnson, Samuel (1896). The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. Johnson: Rambler essays Johnson, Samuel: The Rambler (three volumes) Thomas Tegg, London, 1826.
Johnson, Samuel. (1910). The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. A. L. Burt Company, New York, 1910-ish.
Johnson, Samuel. Taxation no tyranny. The Works of Samuel Johnson; Literary Club, volume 14; Troy, New York (1903).
Johnson, Samuel (1903). Thoughts on the late transactions respecting Falkland's Islands. The Works of Samuel Johnson; Literary Club, volume 14; Troy, New York.
Writings about Samuel Johnson
Allen, Harold B. (1940). Samuel Johnson and the authoritarian principle in linguistic criticism. Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan.
Boswell, James (1787/1992). Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. London: David Campbell.
Burgess, Anthony (1993). The dictionary makers. Wilson Quarterly 17, 104–10.
DeMaria, Robert Jr. (1989) The politics of Johnson's Dictionary, PMLA, 104, 1, 64–74.
Green, Jonathon (1996). Samuel Johnson: The pivotal moment. In Chasing the sun: Dictionary makers and the dictionaries they made (pp. 251-283). New York: Henry Holt.
Porter, R. (2003). Johnson and incorporated minds. In Flesh in the age of reason. NY: W. W. Norton.