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Timeline

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary Timeline

1759
June 22

William Rider publishes A New Universal English Dictionary; or, A Compleat Treasure of the English Language

1760
April 5

SJ publishes the last number of The Idler

1762
July 22

The government offers SJ an annual pension of £30 for his contributions to literature, easing his financial woes

1763
May 16

SJ meets his future biographer, James Boswell

1765
July 22

SJ receives an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin

October 22

SJ publishes his eight-volume edition of Shakespeare’s plays nearly eight years after his deadline

October 22

The third folio edition of SJ’s Dictionary appears

1767
June 22

Archibald Campbell publishes Lexiphanes, an attack on SJ’s fondness for obscure words

1772
June 22

SJ begins work on a substantial revision of the folio Dictionary

December 12

SJ completes his revision and marks the occasion with a Latin poem

1773
January 25

SJ publishes the revised fourth edition of the Dictionary, the only revision of the unabridged version he oversaw

June 22

William Kenrick publishes A New Dictionary of the English Language; though Kenrick often ridiculed SJ, most of his etymologies, definitions, and usage notes are copied verbatim from SJ’s Dictionary without credit

William Kenrick publishes A New Dictionary of the English Language; though Kenrick often ridiculed SJ, most of his etymologies, definitions, and usage notes are copied verbatim from SJ’s Dictionary without credit

August 22

SJ and Boswell travel in the Hebrides in Scotland

1775
January 18

SJ’s Journey to the Western Islands, an account of his tour with Boswell, is published

June 22

John Ash publishes The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language

John Ash publishes The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language

December 16

Jane Austen is born

Jane Austen is born

1779
March 31

SJ publishes the first four volumes of Lives of the Poets

1780
June 22

SJ’s friend Thomas Sheridan publishes A General Dictionary of the English Language: One Main Object of Which, Is, to Establish a Plain and Permanent Standard of Pronunciation, borrowing most of his definitions from SJ

1781
May 15

SJ publishes the last six volumes of Lives of the Poets

1783
June 22

Noah Webster publishes his “blue-backed speller,” which eventually sells more than 60 million copies

1784
December 13

SJ dies in London at the age of seventy-five

December 25

The fifth folio edition of the Dictionary is published

1785
October 1

Boswell publishes his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson

1786
June 22

The first of many books titled Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language in Miniature is published

1791
May 16

Boswell publishes The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

June 22

SJ’s friend John Walker publishes A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language, lifting most of his definitions from SJ

1797
June 22

Samuel Johnson, Jr.—his real name, but no relation to SJ—publishes A School Dictionary in New Haven, the first English dictionary compiled by an American

1806
June 22

Noah Webster publishes A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the forerunner to his great American Dictionary

1815
June 22

Charles Richardson attacks SJ’s Dictionary in Illustrations to English Philology

1818
June 22

Henry John Todd publishes a four-volume revision of SJ’s Dictionary; it becomes the basis for most nineteenth-century versions of the book

1828
June 22

Noah Webster publishes An American Dictionary of the English Language

1837
May 28

Noah Webster dies

June 22

Charles Richardson publishes his New English Dictionary

1843
June 22

George and Charles Merriam buy the rights to Webster’s American Dictionary

1857
June 22

Richard Chenevix Trench delivers a lecture to the Philological Society, calling for a new dictionary to supersede Johnson’s

1884
February 1

The first part of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, covering A–ant, is published

1928
April 19

The last part of A New English Dictionary appears

1933
June 22

A one-volume supplement is added to A New English Dictionary and the whole is republished in thirteen volumes as The Oxford English Dictionary; Johnson’s Dictionary is credited for more than 1,700 definitions