Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

Johnson, a famous poet and critic as well as a lexicographer, published his dictionary in two volumes in 1755 and it immediately set the standard of English lexicography. Many of the lexicographical techniques developed by Johnson, such as the collection of sample quotations on cards, have continued in to be used by major dictionary projects up to the present day. Johnson's exclusion of illustrations and "encyclopedic" as opposed to "lexicographic" information continues to influence the practice of British dictionaries. Known for his witty, if sometimes opinionated definition style (he defines "lexicographer", for instance, as "..a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the significations of words"), Johnson's dictionary offered what was by far the most detailed, orderly, and comprehensive description of the English language to date, and it remained so for many years.

The edition shown here is the revised, 2nd edition published in 1827 by H. J. Todd. It is notable for its "modernized" printing. For instance, the "long s" of Johnson's original (looking rather like an "f") has been replaced by a modern "s", which makes OCR of the DjVu images much easier. While it does not include anything like modern phonetic pronunciations, it does make a rudimentary attempt to suggest pronunciation by indicating the main accented syllable of a word. You will note that Johnson's rather portly image appears twice: as an initial woodcut, and then "ghosted", as it were through years of close companionship, onto the title page itself. This ghost image disappears when one of DjVu's "foreground" options is selected.

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