Samuel Johnson
Writer and Lexicographer · 1709–1784
Who is Samuel Johnson?
Samuel Johnson was an English writer, critic, and lexicographer whose 1755 work A Dictionary of the English Language stood as the preeminent English dictionary for well over a century. Born in Lichfield and largely self-taught after leaving Oxford without a degree due to poverty, he built a formidable literary reputation in London as an essayist, poet, biographer, and editor of Shakespeare, and became the subject of James Boswell's celebrated biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson. In 1770, Britain and Spain came close to war over rival claims to the Falkland Islands after Spanish forces expelled a small British garrison from Port Egmont. Once a diplomatic settlement had been reached, Johnson was commissioned to write on behalf of the government and published Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands in 1771, a pamphlet arguing that the barren, remote islands were not worth the human and financial cost of war. The essay remains one of the earliest and most quoted literary assessments of the islands.
Sources: Samuel Johnson, Wikipedia · Samuel Johnson, Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands (1771) · Britannica, "Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands"