Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784) was an English writer. He was a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. His A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship. He died of a series of illnesses, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
About Samuel Johnson in brief
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784) was an English writer. He was a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. His A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship. He is the subject of James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as ‘the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature’ His odd gestures and tics were disconcerting to some on first meeting him. His behaviour and mannerisms have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. Johnson was a devout Anglican, and politically a committed Tory. He died of a series of illnesses, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In the years following his death, Johnson began to be recognised as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and he was claimed by some to be the only truly great critic of English literature. His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the widely read tale The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. He also wrote Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
His early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. Johnson displayed signs of great intelligence as a child, and his parents sent him to a nearby school at the age of six. A year later, he was sent to a shoemaker to continue his education, and retired to his home in Lichfield, Staffordshire, to be with his wife and three children. He had a son, Nathaniel, who was born in 1741, and a daughter, Mary, who died in 1752. Johnson died in London in 1784, and is buried at Westminster Abbey in a private ceremony. His works include A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, A Life of Richard Savage and A Vanity of human Wishes. Johnson also wrote A Dictionary Of The English Language, which was the pre-eminent British dictionary until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, and A History Of The Plays Of William Shakespeare. His plays include Irene, London, London and London, and The Life Of Richard Savage. Johnson is also the author of A Journey To The Western Islands Of Scotland, a biography of the late Richard Savage (1763), and A Life Of Mr Richardavage (1764), a play about the life of a man called Richard Savage in Scotland. He wrote A Journey to the Western islands of Scotland in 1763, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey.
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