Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson was an English writer whose work spanned criticism, biography, poetry, essays, and lexicography. Born in Lichfield to a bookseller, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, but left after about a year for lack of funds. He spent time in Birmingham in the early 1730s, where he wrote for the Birmingham Journal and translated Father Lobo's "Voyage to Abyssinia" (his first published book). After schoolmastering at Edial near Lichfield, he moved to London in 1737 and built a career in periodical and literary work. His "Dictionary of the English Language" (1755) was among the most influential English dictionaries of its era. He also produced the moral tale "Rasselas," an edition of Shakespeare, and the "Lives of the Poets." Much of his recorded conversation survives through James Boswell's biography. He died in London and was buried in Westminster Abbey.