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Samuel Johnson's dictionary has an almost mythical status, but why?
Samuel Johnson's (1709-84) wide-reaching attempt to define the usage and implied meanings of words, as well as their literal meanings, remained unrivalled for 100 years at a time when the novel was in its infancy. Together with its successors and imitators, it has defined the English language for centuries.
But the early career of Dr Johnson, as he came to be known, was marked out by a singular lack of success. Despite poor eyesight, he went to Pembroke College, Oxford, although he did not take a degree. His early writing, mainly short essays, was scarred by poverty and melancholia, the latter recurring throughout his life. After marrying a widow much older than he, a private school near Lichfield, the town of his birth, was his next project. This, also, was a failure.
Eventually Johnson, approaching the age of 30, traveled to London, where he contributed editorial, essays, poems and biographies to The Gentleman's Magazine. His most notable work during this period was parliamentary debates, accurate reports of the day's political speeches. It was the start of his success, followed by his 1738 publication of his poem 'London'. Then came his famous description of Grub Street (now meaning writing hacks, but originally an actual Moorgate, London street peopled by poor writers of mediocre work) in his 1744 Life of Mr Richard Savage.
It was not until 1749, however, that Johnson published his first work under his own name, The Vanity of Human Wishes, and in the following year he started and began writing almost all the contents for his own periodical, The Rambler. Nevertheless, he had already begun work on his most famous creation, his dictionary, and had even produced a plan of it in 1747.
He dedicated himself to producing his dictionary, although continued to contribute to The Rambler and produce other literary works. After nine years of endeavour, Johnson finally sealed his reputation and an Oxford degree with the 1755 publication of his A Dictionary of the English Language.
Johnson employed six assistants in producing what he called 'a dictionary by which the pronunciation of our language may be fixed, and its attainment facilitated; by which its purity may be preserved, its use ascertained, and its duration lengthened'. Some of the definitions were tongue-in-cheek, but the overall intent was overwhelmingly serious and based as much as possible on etymological research which at the time was highly unusual.
There had been other dictionaries, probably dating back to the start of the 17th century with Cawdrey's 3000-entry Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words. There was also Nathaniel Bailey's much more extensive Universal Etymological Dictionary (1721), but Johnson's work was different because of its focus on descriptions of practical usage as well as literal meanings. Rather than a staid academic exercise, it was a chronicle of a changing, living language. With 114,000 quotes from scholars and literature describing 40,000 words, Johnson's dictionary, updated five times during his lifetime, was to remain without competition until the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884. As such, Johnson's dictionary underpinned the progression of more widely read literature and the development of the novel as a form.
Johnson was mixing with the literary and artistic movers and shakers of his day as well as continuing to write. He was, for example, contributing The Idler series of papers to the Universal Chronicle. In the mid 1760s, meeting in Soho's Turk's Head, he would establish The Literary Club. Its members included painter, writer and first Royal Academy president Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), writer and Whig politician Edmund Burke, dramatist, actor and manager David Garrick (1717-79), philosopher and economist Adam Smith (1723-90) and writer and biographer James Boswell (1740-1795), whose famous account of Johnson's life, The Life of Samuel Johnson, stems from this period. With it, both Boswell and Johnson have become literary legends.