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By the early eighteenth century, France and Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Sensing the deficit, and impelled by a mixture of national pride and commercial expedience, the prodigious polymath Samuel Johnson embraced the task, turning over the garret of his London home to the creation of his own giant dictionary. Johnson imagined that he could complete the job in three years. But the complexity of English meant that his estimate was wildly inadequate. Only after he had expended nearly a decade of his prime on the task did the dictionary finally appear - magisterial yet quirky, dogmatic but generous of spirit, and steeped in the richness of English literature. It would come to be seen as the most important British cultural monument of the eighteenth century, and its influence fanned out across Europe and throughout Britain's colonies - including, crucially, America. Brilliantly entertaining and enlightening, Defining the World is the story of Johnson's heroic endeavor, 250 years after the first publication of the Dictionary. In alphabetically sequenced chapters, Henry Hitchings describes Johnson's adventure - his ambition and vision, his moments of despair, the mistakes he made along the way, and his ultimate triumph.
Written virtually single-handedly over a seven-year period by a revered dean of English letters, Johnson’s Dictionary first appeared in 1755. A remarkable monument to the vigor and variety of our language and to the genius of its author, it served as the standard dictionary for more than 150 years and formed the basis for all subsequent English dictionaries. This modern version reduces the original 2,300 pages of definitions and literary examples to a more manageable length, retaining the verbal pleasure and historical curiosity of the original. It features many entries that can no longer be found in most modern dictionaries, with intriguing definitions and examples of usage in the literature of Johnson’s time.
A collection of original essays celebrating the 250th anniversary of the publication of the Dictionary.
Although the Dictionary is primarily a philological work, DeMaria shows how it also serves literary, moral, and educational purposes. By analyzing the content of the 116,000 illustrative quotations used by Johnson, the author illuminates the major
Brilliantly entertaining and enlightening, this volume tells the story of Samuel Johnson's endeavor to create an authoritative English dictionary. Hitchings describes Johnson's adventure--his ambition and vision, his moments of despair, the mistakes he made along the way, and his ultimate triumph.