Dr Johnson and his Dictionary

A Trailblazer Who Changed the World

A video talk

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Dr Johnson

If you manage a trip to London, do not miss out on visiting the home of Dr Samuel Johnson. It’s a wonderful Georgian house and the only one of his London homes to have survived, and today it is a really excellent museum. Up in the attic you can see where he worked for years on his great dictionary, where he entertained his many literary guests, and drank tea (he described himself as a “hardened and shameless tea drinker”, often indulging in 23 cups in one sitting!). Learn about Dr Johnson’s remarkable life and personality and the story of how he came to work on a book defining words.

Discover the enduring legacy of this trailblazing lexicographer.

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The ‘Dictionary’ is “a perpetual monument of fame to the author, an honour to his own country in particular, and a general benefit to the Republic of Letters.” – Florentine Accademia

Published in 1775, and 2,300 pages long, Dr Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language marked a milestone in a language that desperately needed standards. There had been no scholarly and comprehensive dictionary before he took on the task. No previous dictionary had devoted so much space to everyday words, created such thorough definitions, or illustrated the usage of words from Shakespeare and other great writers. For the next 150 years, Johnson’s Dictionary would define the language.

It took him seven years to complete his task, although he thought he would do it in three. According to critic Walter Jackson Bate, the Dictionary “easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time.” The book’s influence was sweeping. Johnson established a methodology for lexicography and anyone creating a dictionary after Johnson did so in his shadow.