Samuel Johnson

First edition of Samuel Johnson's English dictionary.

• Sold as a set of 2 volumes.
• Samuel Johnson (English).
• A dictionary of the English language: in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar.
• London: Printed by W. Strahan, for J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Millar; and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755.
• Modern full brown calf bound period style, blind-stamped floral borders, raised bands, gilt- and blind-stamped spines, green and lavender goatskin spine labels, red speckled edges.

When Johnson begun work on the dictionary, he was at one of the lowest points of his career: a friend called him "a great genius – quite lost to both himself and the world" (Gilbert Walmesly, letter to David Garrick, November 1746). The work was initially suggested to him by the printer Robert Dodsley: "a monumental project that great authors such as Pope and Joseph Addison had contemplated and given up almost before they really got going and lesser men had trembled to think of compiling even as they grumbled and protests about the dire need Britain had for a dictionary" (Martin, 221). Johnson biographer Peter Martin calls the idea "brave, even reckless" because it was such an immense proposal — the French equivalent took over 40 people 55 years to complete — and without precedent in English in scale and depth of research.

While it was not the first dictionary of the English language, it was by far the most complex, containing multiple definitions of words, etymological and orthographic notes, and examples of usage from major writers like Shakespeare (which in turn buttressed the Bard's own hallowed reputation). The task revealed some of Johnson's hubris — it took 7 years to complete, rather than the 3 Johnson had planned — but ultimately landed like a meteor, with a far-reaching impact felt even today. Since then, cooler heads have followed the example of the French and pursued crowd-sourced solutions when tackling this kind of scale, from the Oxford English Dictionary to Wikipedia. A landmark in English literature, marking the moment when the language reached modern maturity.