Samuel Johnson's Dictionary - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802714218 ISBN 13: 9780802714213

Publisher: Walker Books, 2004

Synopsis

Two volumes thick and 2,300 pages long, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, published in 1755, marked a milestone in a language in desperate need of standards. No English dictionary before it had devoted so much space to everyday words, been so thorough in its definitions, or illustrated usage by quoting from Shakespeare and other great writers.

Johnson's Dictionary would define the language for the next 150 years, until the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary. Johnson's was the dictionary used by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, Wordsworth and Coleridge, the Brontës and the Brownings, Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. Modern dictionaries owe much to Johnson's work.

This new edition, created by Levenger Press, contains more than 3,100 selections from the original, including etymology, definitions, and illustrative passages in their original spelling. Bristling with quotations, the Dictionary offers memorable passages on subjects ranging from books and critics to dreams and ethics. It also features three new indexes created out of entries in this edition: words found in Shakespeare's works, words from other great literary works, and piquant terms used in eighteenth-century discussions of such topics as law, medicine, and the sexes.

Finally, Johnson's "Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language," seldom seen in print, which he wrote eight years before the Dictionary, is reproduced in its entirety. For those who appreciate literature, interpret the law, and love language, this a browser's delight―an encyclopedia of the age and a dictionary for the ages.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Lynch is a professor of English at Rutgers University and a Johnson scholar, having studied the great lexicographer for nearly a decade. He is the author of The Age of Elizabeth in the Age of Johnson (Cambridge University Press) and the editor of A Bibliography of Johnsonian Studies, 1986-1998. He has also written journal articles and scholarly reviews addressing Johnson and the eighteenth century.

From Publishers Weekly

Here is a real treat for word lovers: 3,100 selections from Dr. Johnson's historic dictionary, with definitions, etymologies and usage illustrations. To buss is charmingly defined as "To kiss; to salute with the lips." And laced mutton, readers learn, is "an old word for a whore." The excerpts from the dictionary itself are complemented by the inclusion of Johnson's earlier "Plan of a Dictionary" ("of all the candidates for literary praise, the unhappy lexicographer holds the lowest place," he opines) and three appendixes: one of Shakesperean citations in the dictionary, one of additional literary citations and a third of "piquant terms." ("Ape: A kind of monkey remarkable for imitating what he sees.") In his introduction, Lynch, a Rutgers University Johnson scholar, dispels the myth that this was the first dictionary. It was, however, the first standard dictionary, the one used by Wordsworth, Austen and George Eliot-and this edition of it is fascinating.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0802714218
• ISBN 13: 9780802714213
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 656
• Editor: Jack Lynch