Samuel Johnson

Biography

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was an English writer, critic, lexicographer, and conversationalist—one of the towering figures of eighteenth-century English literature. Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he struggled with poverty and depression throughout his early life before achieving fame with his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), a monumental work that remained the standard for over a century. Johnson was also a brilliant essayist, poet, critic, and editor of Shakespeare. His moral tale Rasselas (1759) and his Lives of the Poets (1779–81) are literary classics. His personality and wit were immortalized by James Boswell’s celebrated biography.