Samuel Johnson’s defining moments

Samuel Johnson was a published author, poet, essayist and biographer by the 1740s, but his career had not taken off or made him money. Certainly the reputation he holds today as a central literary figure of the 18th century, famed for his control of the English language, seemed out of sight. That changed one day in 1746 when a group of booksellers approached Johnson with a monumental task. They wanted him to compile a dictionary more comprehensive than anything seen before, and they paid him