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Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language
Samuel Johnson was a well-known literary figure in England. Johnson was an author, lexicographer, biographer and critic. Johnson has been quoted more often than any other English author with the exception of Shakespeare. Much of Johnson's fame is attributed to the biography done by Boswell. The biography centers on the latter part of Johnson's life, thus Johnson has been seen more as a gruff society figure than as the struggling and poverty-stricken writer he was for much of his life. Samuel Johnson's most famous work was a Dictionary of the English Language. In this preface Johnson eloquently expressed his passion for his work when he wrote the following.
48 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1755
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About the author
Samuel Johnson
4,719 books403 followersPeople note British writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, known as "Doctor Johnson," for his
Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), for
Lives of the Poets
(1781), and for his series of essays, published under the titles
The Rambler
(1752) and
The Idler
(1758).
Samuel Johnson used the first consistent Universal Etymological English Dictionary , first published in 1721, of British lexicographer Nathan Bailey as a reference.
Beginning as a journalist on Grub street, this English author made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. People described Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history." James Boswell subjected him to Life of Samuel Johnson , one of the most celebrated biographies in English. This biography alongside other biographies, documented behavior and mannerisms of Johnson in such detail that they informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians. He presented a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics confused some persons on their first encounters.
Johnson attended Pembroke college, Oxford for a year before his lack of funds compelled him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes ." Christian morality permeated works of Johnson, a devout and compassionate man. He, a conservative Anglican, nevertheless respected persons of other denominations that demonstrated a commitment to teachings of Christ.
After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1905, a century and a half later. In the following years, he published essays, an influential annotated edition of plays of William Shakespeare, and the well-read novel Rasselas . In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , travel narrative of Johnson, described the journey. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , which includes biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. In the years following death, people began to recognize a lasting effect of Samuel Johnson on literary criticism even as the only great critic of English literature.
Samuel Johnson used the first consistent Universal Etymological English Dictionary , first published in 1721, of British lexicographer Nathan Bailey as a reference.
Beginning as a journalist on Grub street, this English author made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. People described Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history." James Boswell subjected him to Life of Samuel Johnson , one of the most celebrated biographies in English. This biography alongside other biographies, documented behavior and mannerisms of Johnson in such detail that they informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians. He presented a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics confused some persons on their first encounters.
Johnson attended Pembroke college, Oxford for a year before his lack of funds compelled him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem " The Vanity of Human Wishes ." Christian morality permeated works of Johnson, a devout and compassionate man. He, a conservative Anglican, nevertheless respected persons of other denominations that demonstrated a commitment to teachings of Christ.
After nine years of work, people in 1755 published his preeminent Dictionary of the English Language, bringing him popularity and success until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1905, a century and a half later. In the following years, he published essays, an influential annotated edition of plays of William Shakespeare, and the well-read novel Rasselas . In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , travel narrative of Johnson, described the journey. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets , which includes biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening; people buried his body in Westminster abbey. In the years following death, people began to recognize a lasting effect of Samuel Johnson on literary criticism even as the only great critic of English literature.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 27, 2015
Murray, in his Oxford lecture on the history of English lexivography, began with Samuel Johnson's famous Dictionary. He then went on to show how Johnson's work was built upon the efforts of many others. Still, most of Murray's time was devoted to the great work of Johnson because it was that book which defined what a dictionary should encompass and did so on a scale never before attempted.
Johnson was aware English needed some sort of codification which an authoritative dictionary could provide.
"When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority."
He knew, too, that no book could actually stop the language from evolving:
"When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation."
But perhaps that evolution could be directed:
"If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language."
And Johnson’s monumental work led eventually to the even greater Oxford English Dictionary.
This Preface thus opens a book which defined English. And it is not only historically important; it is written in language which presents its great vision in beautifully sculpted English of the highest literary quality.
It concludes on a sombre note:
"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the authour, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. . . . I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise."
.
Johnson was aware English needed some sort of codification which an authoritative dictionary could provide.
"When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority."
He knew, too, that no book could actually stop the language from evolving:
"When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation."
But perhaps that evolution could be directed:
"If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language."
And Johnson’s monumental work led eventually to the even greater Oxford English Dictionary.
This Preface thus opens a book which defined English. And it is not only historically important; it is written in language which presents its great vision in beautifully sculpted English of the highest literary quality.
It concludes on a sombre note:
"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the authour, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. . . . I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise."
.
November 20, 2011
For years, when my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas, I would jokingly say, "The first or fourth edition of Johnson's Dictionary." She never came through, and I don't know why - those editions only cost around $10,000 U.S. Over the years I've toyed with buying a facsimile edition or a CD-ROM edition, but even those are priced in the hundreds of dollars.
But lo and behold, there is now a cheap Kindle version. And while it's not perfect, I'm pretty thrilled to be able to carry Johnson's Dictionary around with me. The Kindle version is based on the fourth edition, the last edition to which Johnson made significant additions and corrections. But when an entry appeared only in the first edition, it's also included.
Johnson' Dictionary is more than just a book; it's a monument in the history of English literature. Warts and all, it was the standard English dictionary for at least a hundred years. As Henry Hitchings points out in his book about the Dictionary, Johnson's use of quotes to illustrate the meanings of words makes the Dictionary an anthology of English writing up to Johnson's time. Johnson's definitions range from on-point to humorous to off-base to just odd, but the passages he chooses to quote are fascinating. Up to now I've only had access to selections from Johnson's Dictionary, and didn't realize that there were so many illustrative passages - the quotes take up much more room than the definitions.
I've marked this as "read," which, of course, is just ridiculous; I just didn't want it to show in my "currently reading" list for the rest of my life. Although a few notable figures (like Nathaniel Hawthorne) read it from cover to cover, this is a book to skip around and get lost in. I'll find myself curious about what Johnson has to say about a certain word, but before I get to that word, I'll get sidetracked a dozen times.
My rating of four, rather than five stars is a reflection of the weaknesses of the Kindle edition. The line breaks in the quotations are sometimes weird, but it's not really too hard to figure out what was intended. And navigation is not as awkward as you might expect in a work like this, but it's still not always easy, depending on what word you want to look up. There are many "jumping off" points marked in the table of contents, but if you pick a word halfway between two of those points, you may have a lot of scrolling to do.
It's amazing to think that this mammoth achievement was the work of one man. It's flawed, incomplete, and dated, but still amazing.
But lo and behold, there is now a cheap Kindle version. And while it's not perfect, I'm pretty thrilled to be able to carry Johnson's Dictionary around with me. The Kindle version is based on the fourth edition, the last edition to which Johnson made significant additions and corrections. But when an entry appeared only in the first edition, it's also included.
Johnson' Dictionary is more than just a book; it's a monument in the history of English literature. Warts and all, it was the standard English dictionary for at least a hundred years. As Henry Hitchings points out in his book about the Dictionary, Johnson's use of quotes to illustrate the meanings of words makes the Dictionary an anthology of English writing up to Johnson's time. Johnson's definitions range from on-point to humorous to off-base to just odd, but the passages he chooses to quote are fascinating. Up to now I've only had access to selections from Johnson's Dictionary, and didn't realize that there were so many illustrative passages - the quotes take up much more room than the definitions.
I've marked this as "read," which, of course, is just ridiculous; I just didn't want it to show in my "currently reading" list for the rest of my life. Although a few notable figures (like Nathaniel Hawthorne) read it from cover to cover, this is a book to skip around and get lost in. I'll find myself curious about what Johnson has to say about a certain word, but before I get to that word, I'll get sidetracked a dozen times.
My rating of four, rather than five stars is a reflection of the weaknesses of the Kindle edition. The line breaks in the quotations are sometimes weird, but it's not really too hard to figure out what was intended. And navigation is not as awkward as you might expect in a work like this, but it's still not always easy, depending on what word you want to look up. There are many "jumping off" points marked in the table of contents, but if you pick a word halfway between two of those points, you may have a lot of scrolling to do.
It's amazing to think that this mammoth achievement was the work of one man. It's flawed, incomplete, and dated, but still amazing.
February 5, 2022
It's fascinating to think that there wasn't always an English dictionary and that someone had to be the first to write one. Even more fascinating to realize the first was from the efforts of a single person. Paired with a good biography of Johnson, this is a really interesting exploration of what language is and why it's important, how it develops and changes over time and how people can influence it.
July 1, 2022
I got interested in reading some of the writings of Samuel Johnson after reading the chapter on him in David Brooks's "The Road to Character." So, I found on gutenberg.org an electronic copy of the preface he wrote to his dictionary. I have long been interested in learning more in-depth about the English language (John McWhorter has some excellent books and Great Courses series about English), I found Johnson's preface to be very interesting. Johnson talks about his process and some of the challenges he faced such as the lack of generally accepted word spellings for many words, and, of course, making definitions for many words that had never been defined in a dictionary before. This preface is a glimpse at part of the process of development of our language, written by a very talented and important English writer.
January 16, 2015
Interesting. I am fascinated with language and its development and it is so easy to take dictionaries for granted in this world of instant information overload. Not so at all times as Johnson makes clear.
October 19, 2020
Just utterly fantastic, and bizarrely full of wisdom.
June 9, 2015
Interesting concepts of the meaning of words; still one sided.
Read
December 17, 2018Read for school.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews