A Dictionary of the English Language, Volume I (in two volumes) by Samuel Johnson

A Dictionary of the English Language, Volume I (in two volumes) by Samuel Johnson

Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true. -Samuel Johnson, Johnson: Letter to Fransesco Sastres (1784)

A Dictionary of the English Language Volume I (1825), originally published in 1755, was the first dictionary in the English language to provide detailed definitions and is still widely used to define the meanings of words of that time. Johnson's dictionary initiated the use of quotations, over 114,000, to give a more specific and clear definition of a word, citing authors such as Milton and Shakespeare. Compiled and researched over the course of over eight years by Johnson and his assistants, the dictionary is a reference for all who love language and history.

Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 above his father's bookshop in Lichfield, England. He was a sickly child, scarred by smallpox, with facial and vocal tics, likely symptoms of Tourette Syndrome. But he proved a brilliant student, attending Oxford until a lack of funds forced his departure. (Numerous honorary degrees would later justify his famous sobriquet Dr. Johnson.) At twenty-five he married Elizabeth Tetty Potter, a well-off widow twenty-one years his senior. She funded a school Johnson started, but lost much of her wealth when the school failed. Wracked by guilt, Johnson walked to London and, living virtually on the street, began writing reviews, essays and news for magazines, notably The Idler and The Rambler. In 1744, he published his masterpiece, Life Of Savage, an innovative warts-and-all biography of his friend, writer Richard Savage. Johnson would write several more lives, culminating in his acclaimed three-volume Lives of The Poets. In 1746 a group of publishers asked Johnson to compile an authoritative English dictionary. He completed the massive undertaking in 1755, and A Dictionary of the English Language would set the standard for the next 150 years. Upon his death in 1784 he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Yet his fame only rose when, in 1791, his friend James Boswell published became the most famous life of them all: Life of Samuel Johnson.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781646794638
ISBN 10	164679463X
Title	A Dictionary of the English Language, Volume I (in two volumes)
Author	Samuel Johnson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cosimo Classics
Year published	1755-01-01
Number of pages	1092
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.