The Self-Imposed Penance of Samuel Johnson, English Author

Johnson was known as a tenderhearted, kind man, and inclined to view his own faults severely. He stood in the rain in Lichfield marketplace all one day, in self-imposed penance for having been rude to his father. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory. He is the subject of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. Johnson obtained some notice with his works London (1738) and The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) - both of which are considered great poems - but his efforts in the 1750's are part of why he's considered a titan. This decade saw the creation of his Dictionary (1755), his Rambler essays (1750-52), his Idler essays (1758-60), and Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759)

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1709 1784 Biographer Blinking Boswell Critic Dictionary Editor Essayist Imposed Lexicographer Lichfield Marketplace Moralist Penance Self-imposed

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