Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer and polymath who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer (creator of dictionaries). The work for which he is best known is his 42,733-entry Dictionary of the English Language (1755). For this and other contributions in and to the English language, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has called him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".
Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for The Gentleman's Magazine. Early works include the poem London (1738), the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage (1744), the poem The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and the play Irene (1749). After nine years' effort, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) appeared and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later works included The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) and The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765). In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland; Johnson described his travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775). Near the end of his life, he authored the voluminous and highly influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (17791781), a series of biographies and critical appraisals of 52 poets of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Johnson was a devout Anglican Christian and a committed Tory. Although tall and robust, he was deaf in one ear and blind in one eye. For most of his life he made regular and uncontrolled gestures and tics that disconcerted some upon meeting him. Boswell and other biographers documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed a posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, and a condition neither defined nor manageable in the 18th century. After several illnesses, and extended periods of mental struggle and loneliness, Johnson died on the evening of 13 December 1784, aged 75; he is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Johnson became a celebrity in his later life, "the acknowledged Head of Literature in this kingdom". Following his death, he was increasingly recognised as having had a major and lasting effect on the practice of literary criticism—it was even claimed that he was the one truly great critic of English literature. A prevailing mode of literary theory in the 20th century (one focused upon the language used by literature) drew heavily upon his work, and he likewise had a lasting impact on the forms, research and writing of biography. Johnson's Dictionary had and continues to have far-reaching effects on Modern English—this was an early, major, and widely respected, dictionary of English: it was pre-eminent, at least until the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary some 150 years later. His life was also a story worth telling: Boswell's 1791 biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD, was selected by fellow Johnson-biographer Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature".
Life and career Early life and education
Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709 to bookseller Michael Johnson and his wife Sarah (née Ford). His mother was 40 when she gave birth to Johnson in the family home above his father's bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire. This was considered an unusually late pregnancy, so a man-midwife and surgeon of "great reputation" named George Hector was brought in to assist. The infant Johnson did not cry, and there were concerns for his health. His aunt exclaimed that "she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street". The family feared that Johnson would not survive, and summoned the vicar of St Mary's to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner and Lichfield town clerk.
Johnson's health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew. Some time later he contracted scrofula, known at the time as the "King's Evil" because it was thought that "royal touch" could cure it. Upon the recommendation of Sir John Floyer, former physician to King Charles II, the young Johnson was touched by Queen Anne on 30 March 1712. However, the ritual proved ineffective, and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scars across his face and body. Queen Anne gave Johnson an amulet on a chain he would wear the rest of his life.
When Johnson was three, his brother Nathaniel was born. In a letter he wrote to his mother, Nathaniel complained that Johnson "would scarcely ever use me with common civility." With the birth of Johnson's brother their father was unable to pay the debts he had accrued over the years, and the family was no longer able to maintain its standard of living.
Johnson displayed signs of great intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust, would show off his "newly acquired accomplishments". His education began at the age of three, and was provided by his mother, who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer. When Samuel turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, and, at the age of six he was sent to a retired shoemaker to continue his education.
A year later Johnson went to Lichfield Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin. For his most personal poems, Johnson used Latin. During this time, Johnson started to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his later years, and which formed the basis for a posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome. He excelled at his studies and was promoted to the upper school at the age of nine. During this time, he befriended Edmund Hector, nephew of his "man-midwife" George Hector, and John Taylor, with whom he remained in contact for the rest of his life.
At the age of 16, Johnson stayed with his cousins, the Fords, at Pedmore, Worcestershire. There he became a close friend of Cornelius Ford, who employed his knowledge of the classics to tutor Johnson while he was not attending school. Ford was a successful, well-connected academic, and notorious alcoholic whose excesses contributed to his death six years later. After spending six months with his cousins, Johnson returned to Lichfield, but Hunter, the headmaster, "angered by the impertinence of this long absence", refused to allow Johnson to continue at the school. Unable to return to Lichfield Grammar School, Johnson enrolled at the King Edward VI grammar school at Stourbridge. As the school was located near Pedmore, Johnson was able to spend more time with the Fords, and he began to write poems and verse translations. He spent six months at Stourbridge before returning to his parents' home in Lichfield.
During this time, Johnson's future remained uncertain because his father was deeply in debt. To earn money, Johnson began to stitch books for his father, and it is likely that Johnson spent much time in his father's bookshop reading and building his literary knowledge. The family remained in poverty until his mother's cousin Elizabeth Harriotts died in February 1728 and left enough money to send Johnson to university. On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned 19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford. The inheritance did not cover all of his expenses at Pembroke, and Andrew Corbet, a friend and fellow student at the college, offered to make up the deficit.
Johnson made friends at Pembroke and read much. His tutor asked him to produce a Latin translation of Alexander Pope's Messiah as a Christmas exercise. Johnson completed half of the translation in one afternoon and the rest the following morning. Although the poem brought him praise, it did not bring the material benefit he had hoped for. The poem later appeared in Miscellany of Poems (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and is the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson's writings. Johnson spent the rest of his time studying, even during the Christmas holiday. He drafted a "plan of study" called "Adversaria", which he left unfinished, and used his time to learn French while working on his Greek.
Johnson's tutor, Jorden, left Pembroke some months after Johnson's arrival, and was replaced by William Adams. Johnson enjoyed Adams's tutoring, but by December, was already a quarter behind in his student fees, and was forced to return to Lichfield without a degree, having spent 13 months at Oxford. He left behind many books that he had borrowed from his father because he could not afford to transport them, and also because he hoped to return.
He eventually did receive a degree. Just before the publication of his Dictionary in 1755, the University of Oxford awarded Johnson the degree of Master of Arts. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1765 by Trinity College Dublin and in 1775 by the University of Oxford. In 1776 he returned to Pembroke with Boswell and toured the college with his former tutor Adams, who by then was the Master of the college. During that visit he recalled his time at the college and his early career, and expressed his later fondness for Jorden.
Early career Little is known about Johnson's life between the end of 1729 and 1731. It is likely that he lived with his parents. He experienced bouts of mental anguish and physical pain during years of illness; his tics and gesticulations associated with Tourette syndrome became more noticeable and were often commented upon. By 1731 Johnson's father was deeply in debt and had lost much of his standing in Lichfield. Johnson hoped to obtain the position of a school usher, which became available at Stourbridge Grammar School, but since he did not have a degree, his application was passed over on 6 September 1731.
At about this time, Johnson's father became ill and developed an "inflammatory fever" which led to his death in December 1731 when Johnson was twenty-two. Devastated by his father's death, Johnson sought to atone for an occasion he did not go with his father to sell books. Johnson stood for a "considerable time bareheaded in the rain" in the spot his father's stall used to be. After the publication of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, a statue was erected in that spot.
Johnson eventually found employment as undermaster at a school in Market Bosworth, run by Sir Wolstan Dixie, who allowed Johnson to teach without a degree. Johnson was treated as a servant, and considered teaching boring, but nonetheless found pleasure in it. After an argument with Dixie he left the school, and by June 1732 he had returned home.
Johnson continued to look for a position at a Lichfield school. After being turned down for a job at Ashbourne School, he spent time with his friend Edmund Hector, who was living in the home of the publisher Thomas Warren. At the time, Warren was starting his Birmingham Journal, and he enlisted Johnson's help. This connection with Warren grew, and Johnson proposed a translation of Jerónimo Lobo's account of the Abyssinians. Johnson read Abbé Joachim Le Grand's French translations, and thought that a shorter version might be "useful and profitable". Instead of writing the work himself, he dictated to Hector, who then took the copy to the printer and made any corrections. Johnson's A Voyage to Abyssinia was published a year later. He returned to Lichfield in February 1734, and began an annotated edition of Poliziano's Latin poems, along with a history of Latin poetry from Petrarch to Poliziano; a Proposal was soon printed, but a lack of funds halted the project.