Doctor Johnson in the anteroom of Lord Chesterfield waiting for an audience A critic lexicographer essayist biographer and poet Samuel Johnson was one of the oustanding personalities of th century Britain In he published his Dictionary of the English Language regarded as the first great English dictionary which took him years to compile Noted as a wit and conversationalist Johnson founded the Literary Club in c which numbered David Garrick Edmund Burke Oliver Goldsmith and Joshua Reynolds amongst its distinguished membership Much of his fame derives from his highly popular biography Life of Johnson written by his friend and contemporary James Boswell