Samuel Johnson

Dictionary, Lives of the Poets — the Great Cham

For half a century he was English literature personified — lexicographer, essayist, poet, critic, and the greatest talker in English history (thanks to Boswell). The Dictionary was a one-man feat of intellectual labor; Rasselas is a philosophical fable to rival Candide; the Lives of the Poets invented English literary criticism.

Key works

• A Dictionary of the English Language1755— Nine years, one man — the language codified
• Lives of the Poets1779-1781— English literary criticism begins here
• Rasselas1759— The vanity of human wishes — written in a week to pay for his mother's funeral

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