Samuel Johnson

Author Code: ESJX

One of the outstanding figures of the 18th century, Johnson was educated at Oxford but did not graduate. He started a private school in 1735 near Lichfield, but this was not successful and he went to London in 1737 where he took a position with Edward Cave, the printer who had founded The Gentleman's Magazine. He contributed essays, biographies, poems and parliamentary reports to the magazine. He published London, a poem, in 1738. During 1744, he published Life of Mr. Richard Savage, which was to be included in the Lives of the Poets (1777). The Vanity of Human Wishes, his best poem, was published in 1749 and his play, Irene, which had been written in 1736, was produced in London that same year. He founded the Rambler magazine in 1750 which ran for two years. Johnson's reputation was finally secured with the publication of his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, and the works of Shakespeare in 1765. Johnson's friendship with James Boswell, which began in 1763, was to become one of the most famous friendships in literary history. Boswell became Johnson's biographer after his death.