Johnson, Samuel (1709–1784)

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.

Early years
Johnson distinguished himself at university, but was prevented by lack of money from taking a degree (later he received the degree of LLD from Dublin University in 1765 and Oxford in 1775). He became a schoolteacher and in 1735 he married Elizabeth Porter (died 1752) and opened a private school. When this proved unsuccessful, he went to London with his pupil, the actor David Garrick, becoming a regular contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine. He did much journalistic work and published the poem London (1738) and a biography of his friend, English poet and dramatist Richard Savage (1744). In 1746 he issued the plan for his Dictionary and addressed it to Lord Chesterfield; receiving no assistance from this quarter, he began work in 1747 and later snubbed Chesterfield in a famous letter. With six assistants, he worked on the Dictionary project for eight years.

Financial stability
After publishing The Vanity of Human Wishes, the following year (1750) he launched a bi‐weekly periodical which he called The Rambler. Johnson's mother died in 1759, and to pay the expenses of her illness and funeral he wrote Rasselas, a moral fable, in the evenings of a single week. Three years later his financial troubles came to an end with the government grant of a civil list pension of £300 a year. He then brought out his long‐promised edition of Shakespeare, The Lives of the English Poets, and the account of his Scottish tour with Boswell. When his friend Henry Thrale died in 1781, his widow, Hester (a much valued friend of Johnson's), married Gabriele Piozzi, which Johnson took as a personal betrayal, and he could never entirely forgive Hester Piozzi. He died in dejection and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His house in Gough Square, London, is preserved as a museum.