The Works Of Samuel Johnson

A one-volume collection of the prose and poetry of eighteenth-century Britain’s pre-eminent lexicographer, critic, biographer, and poet Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson was eighteenth-century Britain’s preeminent man of letters, and his influence endures to this day. He excelled as a moral and literary critic, biographer, lexicographer, and poet. This anthology, designed to make Johnson’s essential works accessible to students and general readers, draws its texts from the definitive Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. In most cases, texts are included in full rather than excerpted. The anthology includes many essays from The Rambler and other periodicals; Rasselas; the prefaces to Johnson’s Dictionary and his edition of Shakespeare; the complete Lives of Cowley, Milton, Pope, Savage, and Gray, as well as generous selections from A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Some parts are arranged thematically, allowing readers to focus on such topics as religion, marriage, war, and literature. The anthology includes a biographical introduction, and its ample annotation updates and enlarges the commentary in the Yale Edition.

Jeffrey Meyers tells the extraordinary story of Samuel Johnson one of the most illustrious figures of English literary tradition. Johnson was famous as a poet, novelist, biographer, essayist, critic, editor, lexicographer, conversationalist and larger than life personality. After nine years of work Johnson's, 'A dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1755. He overcame great adversity to achieve success. 'The Struggle' is a masterful portrait of a brilliant and tormented figure.

This Companion, first published in 1997, provides an introduction to the works and life of one of the key figures in English literary history.

As a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, Samuel Johnson's contributions to English literature cannot be understated. His single greatest achievement is widely considered to be his "Dictionary of the English Language," which after nine years of research was first published in 1755. Until the publication of the "Oxford English Dictionary" over a century and a half later it was widely considered to be the preeminent dictionary of the English language. The work brought him much fame and success and had a profound impact on modern English literature. Johnson's contributions to the periodicals "The Rambler" and "The Idler" are considered to be some of the greatest examples of literary criticism of all time. This collection includes some of the best examples of his essays from those periodicals as well as a representative selection of his poetry, prose as well as his famous allegorical novel "The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia." Readers of this volume will most assuredly agree that Johnson was a writer of immense talent whose genius is exhibited by the sheer breadth of his body of work.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.