Book description
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, published in 1755, marked a milestone in a
language in desperate need of standards. No English dictionary before it
had devoted so much space to everyday words, been so thorough in its
definitions, or illustrated usage by quoting from Shakespeare and other
great writers. Johnson's was the dictionary used by Jane Austen and
Charles Dickens, Wordsworth and Coleridge, the Bront s and the
Brownings, Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. This new edition, edited by
David Crystal, will contain a selection from the original, offering
memorable passages on subjects ranging from books and critics to dreams
and ethics.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) - English poet, essayist, critic,
journalist, lexicographer, conversationalist, regarded as one of the
outstanding figures of 18th-century life and letters. Johnson's
literary reputation is part dependent on James Boswell's biography The
Life of Samuel Johnson LL. D. (1791). In addition to his Dictionary
and the philosophical romance of THE PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA (1759, later
known as RASSELAS), Johnson published essays in The Adventurer
(1752-54) and The Idler (1758-60). He wrote a number of political
articles, biographies of Sir Thomas Browne and Roger Ascham, and
contributed to the Universal Chronicle.
David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University
of Wales, Bangor. He has published over 90 books and was awarded the
OBE for services to the English language in 1995. He is the author of
the Penguin Encyclopedia, the Penguin Factfinder, Stories of English
and The Shakespeare Miscellany among other books published by Penguin.
