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The Complete Works of Samuel Johnson
The Complete Works of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. Religiously, he was a devout Anglican, and politically a committed Tory.
This collection includes the following
A Grammar of the English Tongue
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume The Tragedies
A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland
Lives of the Addison, Savage, and Swift
Lives of the English Waller, Milton, Cowley
Rasselas
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. Religiously, he was a devout Anglican, and politically a committed Tory.
This collection includes the following
A Grammar of the English Tongue
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume The Tragedies
A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland
Lives of the Addison, Savage, and Swift
Lives of the English Waller, Milton, Cowley
Rasselas
1067 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 15, 2013
135 people are currently reading
163 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Johnson
4,756 books419 followersPeople note British writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, known as "Doctor Johnson," for his
Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), for
Lives of the Poets
(1781), and for his series of essays, published under the titles
The Rambler
(1752) and
The Idler
(1758).
Samuel Johnson used the first consistent Universal Etymological English Dictionary , first published in 1721, of British lexicographer Nathan Bailey as a reference.
Beginning as a journalist on Grub street, this English author made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. People described Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history." James Boswell subjected him to Life of Samuel Johnson , one of the most celebrated biographies in English. This biography alongside other biographies, documented behavior and mannerisms of Johnson in such detail that they informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians. He presented a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics confused some persons on their first encounters.
Johnson attended Pembroke college, Oxford for a year before his lack of funds compelled him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes ." Christian morality permeated works of Johnson, a devout and compassionate man. He, a conservative Anglican, nevertheless respected persons of other denominations that demonstrated a commitment to teachings of Christ.
After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1905, a century and a half later. In the following years, he published essays, an influential annotated edition of plays of William Shakespeare, and the well-read novel Rasselas . In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , travel narrative of Johnson, described the journey. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , which includes biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. In the years following death, people began to recognize a lasting effect of Samuel Johnson on literary criticism even as the only great critic of English literature.
Samuel Johnson used the first consistent Universal Etymological English Dictionary , first published in 1721, of British lexicographer Nathan Bailey as a reference.
Beginning as a journalist on Grub street, this English author made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. People described Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history." James Boswell subjected him to Life of Samuel Johnson , one of the most celebrated biographies in English. This biography alongside other biographies, documented behavior and mannerisms of Johnson in such detail that they informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians. He presented a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics confused some persons on their first encounters.
Johnson attended Pembroke college, Oxford for a year before his lack of funds compelled him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes ." Christian morality permeated works of Johnson, a devout and compassionate man. He, a conservative Anglican, nevertheless respected persons of other denominations that demonstrated a commitment to teachings of Christ.
After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1905, a century and a half later. In the following years, he published essays, an influential annotated edition of plays of William Shakespeare, and the well-read novel Rasselas . In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , travel narrative of Johnson, described the journey. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , which includes biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. In the years following death, people began to recognize a lasting effect of Samuel Johnson on literary criticism even as the only great critic of English literature.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 18, 2021
Samuel Johnson is one of my top five favorite authors. His words are a comfort I have returned to hundreds of times. He is my in-between reading. The Rambler, Rasselas, Prefaces, articles, it does not matter where you start reading, just start reading Johnson. His entire corpus is available for free online, uncopyrighted. I have the 14-volume edition on my Kindle as well as this compact ebook. When I first read his poetry and play, I was not won over. But everything he did was an exercise in argument, not necessarily a lyrical accomplishment. Still, his unapproachable and unstoppable rhetoric is fine-tuned as any Cicero or Gorgias. The poetry is not the best place to start But that was only the first volume I tried. I moved on through several more volumes, could not stop reading. Then I gave up when I came to the Dictionary. You can be sure that his Dictionary is one of the more interesting ones you could choose to read, and there is the importance of the fact that it is the first one in the English language to consider, but it is still a dictionary. Since then, I have come back to his Rambler articles, and have dipped into his Idler essays, which I consider divine reading on the level of Shelley and Shakespeare for sheer delight. His wit, wisdom, and uncanny ability to hit the nail on the head, to cut to the heart of the matter, and to move you with his profound intellect are unsurpassed. With Johnson, I experience the same awe as when I read Faulkner, except Johnson does not seem to proceed with a plan. Rather, if you gave him a pen and he started scribbling in a candlelit room, he would still mesmerize you with incidental observations. You have Faulkner and Dickens who have mastered the novel in English. With them, you don't really need to read too many other novels to experience a vast fictional range. Otherwise, Johnson reigns supreme over the miscellaneous realm of nonfiction writing and criticism in my mind. I feel that I will never tire of reading him.
March 25, 2017
Final required reading for my British Literature class, and I was slightly sad to come to the end. That being said I loved the final reading for the class. I had heard of Samuel Johnson before. If you read any history of London that takes place during his lifetime, he at least gets a mention. So I knew going in about his Dictionary and Preface to Shakespeare, but I had never picked up and read any of his work. For some reason, I had him firmly listed as a boring old guy who's work I would hate, so I always avoided it. I was really wrong, I loved reading "Vanity of Human Wishes" "Rambler no. 4" and "Rambler no. 60". I will definitely be reading more of his writing in the near future.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews