Johnson on the English Language

Essential writings on the English language—its history, structure, and cultural importance—by one of its most adroit practitioners
 
This volume of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson collects the writer’s most important statements on the English language. It includes fully annotated editions of Johnson’s main writings on the history, structure, and cultural importance of English, as well as his reflections on lexicography. These texts represent Johnson’s thinking as he undertook and completed the major work of his life, the colossal Dictionary of the English Language.
 
By setting Johnson’s writings on the English language in historical context, the editors provide the fullest possible account of their composition. Among the works presented in the volume are Johnson’s Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language andthe Preface to the Dictionary,both of which are counted among his finest works of prose.

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was a poet, essayist, biographer, and editor. Gwin J. Kolb is Chester D. Tripp Professor Emeritus in Humanities, University of Chicago. Robert DeMaria, Jr., is Henry Noble MacCracken Professor of English at Vassar College.