Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner and Lichfield town clerk. The family feared that Johnson would not survive, and summoned the vicar of St Mary's to perform a baptism. His aunt exclaimed that "she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street". The infant Johnson did not cry, and there were concerns for his health. This was considered an unusually late pregnancy, so precautions were taken, and a man-midwife and surgeon of "great reputation" named George Hector was brought in to assist. His mother was 40 when she gave birth to Johnson in the family home above his father's bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire. Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709, to Sarah (née Ford) and Michael Johnson, a bookseller.
Main article: Early life of Samuel Johnson Johnson's birthplace in Market Square, Lichfield Life and career Early life and education Boswell's Life was selected by Johnson biographer Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature". Johnson's Dictionary had far-reaching effects on Modern English, and was pre-eminent until the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later. A prevailing mode of literary theory in the 20th century drew from his views, and he had a lasting impact on biography. In his later life Johnson became a celebrity, and following his death he was increasingly seen to have had a lasting effect on literary criticism, even being claimed to be the one truly great critic of English literature. After several illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. Tall and robust, he displayed gestures and tics that disconcerted some on meeting him. Johnson was a devout Anglican, and a committed Tory. Near the end of his life came a massive, influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets of the 17th and 18th centuries.ĭr. In 1763 he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland, as Johnson described in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
Later work included essays, an annotated The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the apologue The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. After nine years' effort, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Early works include Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes and the play Irene. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for The Gentleman's Magazine. īorn in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, until lack of funds forced him to leave.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer.
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