Selected Essays

Samuel Johnson was born on September 18, 1709, in Lichfield, in Staffordshire, and is unanimously regarded as one of the largest English-language prose authors. Distributed by essay, chronicle, poetry, biography, lexicography and literary criticism, the work of Samuel Johnson crosses all genres without losing elegance, the critical spirit, erudition and commitment to literature. Pioneer literary journalism, he wrote for The Gentleman's Magazine, The Rambler and The Idler, in addition to having prepared – at the same time, Over nine years – a pioneering dictionary of the English language (1755). The Vanity of Human Wishes, his most popular book of poetry known, was published in 1749; During the following decade, he also dealt with the work of Shakespeare, which he organized and preface (1765) before, in 1779, he began the publication of his monumental Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and of, in 1775, his account A Journey to the Western was printed Islands of Scotland, a trip he made in the company of James Boswell (1740-1795), to whom we owe the extensive and very rich biography, Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., published in 1791. Johnson died in London on December 13, 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.