Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary

      By the early 18th century, France & Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Sensing the deficit, & impelled by a mixture of national pride & 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 3 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, & steeped in the richness of English literature. It would come to be seen as the most important British cultural monument of the 18th century, & its influence fanned out across Europe & throughout Britain's colonies - including, crucially, America.
      Brilliantly entertaining & enlightening, Defining the World is the story of Johnson's heroic endeavor, 250 years after the first publication of the Dictionary. In alphabetically sequenced chapters, Henry Hitchings describes Johnson's adventure - his ambition & vision, his moments of despair, the mistakes he made along the way, & his ultimate triumph.  
      Henry Hitchings was born in 1974 & has written mainly about language & history, starting in 2005 with Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. The Secret Life of Words (2008) won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize & a Somerset Maugham Award, as well as seeing him shortlisted for the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. 2011’s The Language Wars completed what was in effect a trilogy of books about language. He is a prolific critic & has made several programs for radio & television on subjects including Erasmus Dar