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Volume 1, Number 1: 18th-Century London

	Literature	Samuel Johnson (September 18, 1709–December 13, 1784)
		Let me explain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.* Samuel Johnson is known today as the greatest of 18th-century men of letters. A celebrity in his own time, he is now revered for his Dictionary, the first great lexicon of the English language; and for his contributions to literary theory and criticism. He was also a poet, essayist, dramatist, and novelist, and lived at the center of the London literary scene. The strength of his influence caused the period to be known as the “Age of Johnson.” Visit the Stacks page to find books and other resources on Samuel Johnson.
	Samuel Johnson	(Yes, from The Princess Bride*)

Major Works

	1738	London (poem)
	1749	The Vanity of Human Wishes (poem)
	1750–1752	The Rambler (essays)
	1753–1754	The Adventurer (essays)
	1755	Dictionary of the English Language
	1758–1760	The Idler (essays)
	1759	Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (short novel)
	1765	Eight-volume edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare
	1775	Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (travelogue)
	1779–1781	Lives of the Poets

To read the Preface to Johnson’s Dictionary, click here.

	Some Literary Contemporaries
	Early: As Johnson’s writing career was beginning in the 1730s, that of the great poet Alexander Pope (The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Man) was coming to an end. Other writers just ending their careers include John Gay (The Beggar’s Opera) and Jonathan Swift (A Modest Proposal, Gulliver’s Travels). Johnson’s early contemporaries include Henry Fielding (Tom Jones), poet Thomas Gray (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard), and Samuel Richardson (Pamela, Clarissa). Late: Contemporaries of Johnson’s later career include Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy), Oliver Goldsmith (The Vicar of Wakefield), dramatist Richard Sheridan (The Rivals, The School for Scandal), poet William Cowper (translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey into blank verse), Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), Fanny Burney (Evelina, Camilla), and Charlotte Lennox (Poems on Several Occasions, Euphemia).
	James Boswell: Boswell deserves special mention because his lasting literary contribution and claim to fame is his Life of Samuel Johnson. Though not the first biography of Johnson, it became the most celebrated. The much younger Boswell had become friends with Johnson in London, and traveled with him through his (Boswell’s) native Scotland in 1773. Boswell’s biography is characterized by strong personal affection and ubiquitous quotations from the great Dr. Johnson. In fact, many of the sayings now attributed to Johnson first appeared in print in Boswell’s work.

What I Love About Samuel Johnson

Words words words. A writer’s writer: poet, novelist, essayist, literary critic,
lexicographer. Unbelieveably widely-read, multilingual, steel-trap memory,
deeply religious, self-made. As they would have said in his time, “a man of
superior parts.” His Literary Club included some of the most prominent artistic
and intellectual figures of the time, such as statesman and author Edmund
Burke, celebrated actor and playwright David Garrick, writer Oliver Goldsmith,
painter Joshua Reynolds, historian Edward Gibbon, and philosopher and
economist Adam Smith.

What I Love About the Age of Johnson

History: When Johnson’s first major literary success, the poem London,
appeared in 1738, the first and second U.S. Presidents were mere children:
Geo. Washington, 6 years old; John Adams, just 3. The Georgia colony had
existed only 5 years. Yet by the time Johnson’s Lives of the Poets was finished
in 1781, the Revolutionary War had reached its final stage, with Lord Cornwallis
surrendering to General Washington (robust at 49) after the battle of Yorktown.

Everything else: Waistcoats and frock coats. Gentlemen’s swords. Carriages
and coaches. Tricornes. The way people called each other “sir” and “madam.”

	Can’t Get Enough of Samuel Johnson?
	The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum and Bookshop The Johnson Society Literatus “So happy a union of force, vivacity, and perspicuity.”—James Boswell, on Johnson’s writing style

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