Samuel Johnson Biography

Samuel Johnson was a prolific English writer, poet, essayist, critic, biographer and lexicographer. After attending a year in Pembroke College Oxford, he dropped out owing to financial constraints. However, he still went on to make an impact as a teacher and writer in his early career. He wrote several articles and biographies in ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’, and later wrote poems and the famous play ‘Irene’, but one of his most notable works came after an endeavour of nine years, when his book ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ was published, the first of its kind to precede ‘The Oxford Dictionary’ which was published nearly 150 years later. Towards the latter end of his career, he became more of a literary critic and an essayist. Since childhood he suffered from the ‘Tourette Syndrome’ that caused frequent involuntary tics and odd physical gestures, yet his talent and wit transcended such physical barriers. He is also proclaimed as the greatest literary critic of all time.