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Samuel Johnson, born 300 years ago this week, wrote one of the most important books in the English language. So what was it that made his dictionary so special? "Dictionaries", said Samuel Johnson, "are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true." It may not have achieved perfection, but Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, is generally regarded as one of the most important works of scholarship in the English language. Such was its authority that it remained the most pre-eminent of its kind for more than 170 years, until the advent of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928. Johnson introduced a literary quality to lexicography that remains an influence to this day. Remarkably, during the nine years it took him to complete his work, his wife Elizabeth, known as Tetty, died and he suffered increasing bouts of depression that had afflicted him throughout his life. It wasn't just the wealth of poems, essays, novels, and literary criticism that inspired a group of publishers to commission the dictionary from Dr Johnson, but also his reputation for tackling the most daunting of literary tasks such as compiling comprehensive reports of parliamentary debates.
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