eBook - ePub

Defining the World

Name: Defining the World
Author: Henry Hitchings

The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary

Henry Hitchings,

308 pages
English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

Defining the World

The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary

Henry Hitchings,

About this book

"[A] marvelous account" of Johnson's towering achievement, nearly a decade of labor and linguistic fact-finding, presented by "a buoyant, zestful writer" ( The Boston Globe ). By the early eighteenth century, France and Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Impelled by a mixture of national pride and commercial expedience, the prodigious polymath Samuel Johnson embraced the task, turning over the garret of his London home to the creation of his own giant dictionary. Johnson imagined that he could complete the job in three years. But the complexity of English meant that his estimate was wildly inadequate. Only after he had expended nearly a decade of his prime on the task did the dictionary finally appear—magisterial yet quirky, dogmatic but generous of spirit, and steeped in the richness of English literature. It would come to be seen as the most important British cultural monument of the eighteenth century, and its influence fanned out across Europe and throughout Britain's colonies—including, crucially, America. Brilliantly entertaining and enlightening, Defining the World is the story of Johnson's heroic endeavor. In alphabetically sequenced chapters, Henry Hitchings describes Johnson's adventure—his ambition and vision, his moments of despair, the mistakes he made along the way, and his ultimate triumph.

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Yes, you can access Defining the World by Henry Hitchings in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Historical Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.