Timeline
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary Timeline
1694
June 16
June 16
The first edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie françoise is published in four volumes in Paris
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1700
June 16
June 16
John Dryden, one of the most quoted authors in the Dictionary, dies
1702
June 16
June 16
John Kersey publishes A New English Dictionary; or, A Complete Collection of the Most Proper and Significant Words, Commonly Used in the Language
No Video URL Provided
1709
September 18
September 18
Samuel Johnson is born in Lichfield
1712
May 16
May 16
Alexander Pope publishes the first version of The Rape of the Lock
1719
June 16
June 16
Daniel Defoe publishes the first part of Robinson Crusoe
1721
June 16
June 16
Nathan Bailey publishes An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, the most popular dictionary of the eighteenth century
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1723
June 16
June 16
Thomas Dyche publishes a small Dictionary of All the Words Commonly Us’d in the English Tongue
1726
June 16
June 16
Work begins on the Diccionario de la lengua española
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October 28
October 28
Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver’s Travels
No Video URL Provided
1728
October 31
October 31
Samuel Johnson matriculates at Pembroke College, Oxford
No Video URL Provided
1729
January 29
January 29
John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera opens at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre
No Video URL Provided
December 12
December 12
Samuel Johnson, unable to pay the fees, is forced to leave Oxford without a degree
No Video URL Provided
1730
June 16
June 16
Nathan Bailey publishes the first edition of the Dictionarium Britannicum
No Video URL Provided
1732
March 16
March 16
SJ serves as a teacher at Market Bosworth Grammar School, earning £20 a year; he leaves after a few months
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1735
June 9
June 9
SJ marries Elizabeth “Tetty” Porter, and uses her money to open a boarding school at Edial
June 16
June 16
SJ’s first book, a translation of Jerónimo Lobo’s travel book about Abyssinia, is published
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June 16
June 16
Thomas Dyche’s New General English Dictionary: Particularly Calculated for the Use and Improvement of Such as Are Unacquainted with the Learned Languages is published
No Video URL Provided
1736
June 22
June 22
Nathan Bailey publishes the second edition of the Dictionarium Britannicum, SJ’s most important predecessor
No Video URL Provided
1737
January 22
January 22
SJ’s Edial School is forced to close
No Video URL Provided