Item talk:Q387539

Education: taught to read by his mother, dame-school kept by a widow, Ann Oliver, studied under schoolmaster Thomas Browne age 6/7, became a day boy at the ancient grammar school of Lichfield, to embark on Latin under the usher Humphry Hawkins 1717, entered the upper school, where he was placed at first under the Revd Edward Holbrooke then under the headmaster, John Hunter 1719, his cousin Revd Cornelius Ford arranged for him to enter King Edward VI School at Stourbridge as a boarder (he may have taught the younger boys in exchange for his own advanced tuition) 1726, Pembroke College, Oxford 1728-9 (father unable to provide funds; partially funded perhaps by small legacy which his mother received from her cousin; financial difficulties plagued his short college career, which he left without taking a degree) , MA 1755 in recognition of the forthcoming Dictionary, received the degree of doctor of laws from Dublin University 1765

Coteries: David Garrick, traveled with him to London 1737, Richard Savage, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Elizabeth Carter, Charlotte Lennox, Anna Williams, Thomas Warton, Giuseppe Baretti, Frances Burney, Edward Cave, Robert Dodsley, Andrew Millar, Thomas Longman, William Strahan

Periodicals etc.: GM 1730s, The Harleian Miscellany (1744–6), on which Johnson collaborated with the noted antiquarian William Oldys, contributed to a large Medicinal Dictionary (1743–5) by his schoolfriend Robert James, Between April 1758 and April 1760 he provided over 100 essays to a weekly journal called the Universal Chronicle., “In 1773 he [Thomas Davies] audaciously published ’Miscellaneous and fugitive pieces’ in two volumes, and advertised them as ’by the author of the Rambler.’ Johnson’s writings, which he had appropriated without authority, formed the bulk of this collection.” - DNB.

Career: unemployed 1729-1731, failed to obtain a job as usher at his old school in Stourbridge, worked at a job at Market Bosworth grammar school, lasted only from March to July 1732 because he hated it, received a paltry inheritance of £19, which was all he could expect from his father's estate during the lifetime of his mother, failed to obtain a job as usher at Ashbourne School, wrote for Thomas Warren's newspaper the Birmingham Journal 1733, married widow Elizabeth Porter, née Jervis July 1735; she had a fortune of about £600 but the couple had little by way of a regular income, tried and failed to interest Edward Cave in accepting writing for GM, just before his marriage he served for two months as private tutor to the family of Thomas Whitby, failed to obtain mastership of Solihull School , opened a boarding school, no doubt funded by his wife's small fortune, but low enrollment forced the school to close little more than a year after its opening in late 1735, moved to London to seek his fortune as a writer 1737, Cave accepted some verse and then printed a short life of Father Paolo Sarpi in GM 1738, became Cave's right-hand man in running the Gentleman's Magazine from its office at St John's Gate, Clerkenwell, planned a translation of Sarpi's history of the Council of Trent (1619) under Cave; Johnson was paid almost £50 for the work in progress, but it had to be abandoned in 1739 owing to a rival version. left london for the midlands to seek employment at Appleby grammar school, failed even with the help of Pope and Swift 1739-40 , wrote pamphlets, short biographies, catalogues 1740-5, compiled a new English dictionary, an effort funded by a group of booksellers headed by Robert Dodsley; signed a contract on 18 June 1746, to be paid 1500 guineas , 20 March 1750, Johnson instituted his series of 208 essays entitled The Rambler, which came out twice a week until 14 March 1752; he received 2 guineas for each issue., appointed editor of a new journal called the Literary Magazine 1756, In July 1762 relief of financial pressures came when he was awarded a pension of £300 a year by the first lord of the Treasury, the earl of Bute, perhaps less for services rendered than as an encouragement to support the new administration., supported his scholar friends late 1760s, became an honorary professor in ancient literature at the Royal Academy, part of the Literary Club, formed at the instigation of Reynolds in 1764, William Strahan recommended SJ as a member of Parliament to no avail 1771, resumed his career as a political writer 1770.

Overall: While learning Latin and studying literature under his cousin Ford around 1726, he also wrote a number of English poems. At Pembroke, some of his work helped to promote his reputation in the academic community, notably a translation of Pope's already Latinate Messiah into Latin verse, prepared as a college exercise at Christmas 1729. This became Johnson's first published piece when it appeared in a miscellany two years later, and it allegedly impressed Pope himself. When SJ left Oxford in 1729, he had mounting debts and the pressure of his father's failing business, and severe 'melancholia'. He was unemployed of and on and struggling financially. His first sustained literary work A Voyage to Abyssinia earned Johnson 5 guineas from Thomas Warren, a Birmingham bookseller, although the actual publishers were members of the London trade. Throughout the early to mid 1730s, SJ married, seems to have spent all of his wife's fortune, and made a number of failed attempts at employment. When he left for London with Garrick in 1737, he claimed that he arrived with 2½d. in his pocket, while his young friend had only three halfpence. He began working for Cave and writing extensively for GM (including translations and political satires against Walpole). During the late 1730s Johnson's career was at last beginning to flourish, although he was unable to get Irene staged. He and his wife still had constant monetary problems and had to move around a lot around Fleet Street. Despite writing pamphlets and successful short biographies, he remained underemployed up until around 1745 when he considered entering the legal profession. His most famous and enduring work was his Dictionary (contracted 1746), for which he received 1500 guineas. During this time he finally established himself as a writer. Despite his blossoming career, he remained poor, and once in March 1756 Samuel Richardson came to his aid when he was arrested for a debt of about £5. His literary productivity slowed in the 1760s. His later years were marked by spurts of ill health, some travel with friends, and his famous prefaces to Lives, which he was contracted for for £200. He profited from the good relations he maintained with the London publishing world, having been born into a family of booksellers. The DNB ends by praising his legacy: "Johnson was arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history. His range as a writer is astonishing: he excelled in criticism, satire, biography, the moral essay, fiction, scholarly editing, travel writing, political pamphleteering, journalism, and lexicography. He produced distinguished poetry both in English and in Latin. Apart from this, he composed noteworthy sermons, impressive prayers, a moving diary, and superb letters." [He has an insane amount of publications in the ESTC, I included only the ones he wrote, though he wrote prefaces for many other works. Many of his publications went through multiple editions.]