Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer.He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature”: James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.
After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write miscellaneous pieces for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poems "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes", and the play Irene.
After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Languagewas published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship."For a decade, Johnson's constant work on the Dictionary disrupted his and Tetty's (his wife) living conditions. He had to employ a number of assistants for the copying and mechanical work, which filled the house with incessant noise and clutter. He was always busy with his work, and kept hundreds of books around.
John Hawkins described the scene: "The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning".
