Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
Lichfield, England

"The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience."

Samuel Johnson is considered by scholars to be one of the most important English writers of the eighteenth century. In fact, he is so influential in the literary world that scholars often refer to the late eighteenth century as "The Age of Johnson." He is the most quoted prose writer next to Shakespeare and The Bible. He was born to a bookseller and lived in poverty. Despite a weakness in health, Johnson excelled in school. In 1784, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford yet withdrew due to poverty. In 1737, along with his student David Garrick, he traveled to London and tried to make a living off of writing. He wrote for a variety of genres, from biographies to political satire. In 1738, he had his first hit through his politically satirical poem London. Johnson's first work of lasting importance, and the one that permanently established his reputation in his own time, was his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the first comprehensive lexicographical work on English ever undertaken. It remained until a century later the Oxford dictionary replaced it. While working on the dictionary, Johnson worked on a series of periodicals called The Rambler. In 1764 Johnson and Joshua Reynolds founded "The Club" (known later as The Literary Club). Its membership included Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, and Boswell. The brilliance of this intellectual elite was, reportedly, dazzling, and Dr. Johnson (he had received a degree in 1764) was its leading light. His witty remarks are remembered to this day. He was a master not only of the aphorism-e.g., his definition of angling as "a stick and a string, with a worm on one end and a fool on the other"-but also of the quick, unexpected retort, as when, while listening with displeasure to a violinist, he was told that the feat being performed was very difficult: "Difficult," replied Johnson, "I wish it had been impossible!" Johnson was a great man of adversity and he is still remembered today as one of the best there ever was.

Works
Life of Savage (1744)
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
The Rambler (1750-52)
Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Rasselas (1759)
The Idler (1761)
Lives of the Poets (1779-1781)

Sources:

Lynch, Jack. "Samuel Johnson." Homepage. November 2, 2000. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/Guide/who.html

"Samuel Johnson." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 1994. Columbia University Press. 2000. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0826489.html