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Samuel Johnson was the towering literary figure of the 18th century, an awkward-looking native of Lichfield who made his way in the London political and literary world by sheer force of intellect and genius. The commission to write the first English Dictionary, completed in 1755, made his name and led to a pension being awarded by King George III whose policies he had bitterly opposed in his early journalism. Johnson's later years are meticulously documented by his indefatigable biographer Boswell, including his travels in the UK and abroad, and his friendship with Mrs Hester Thrale. This single volume anthology is compiled from the definitive Yale edition of Johnson's works. Essays in the periodicals The Rambler, Idler and Adventurer see Johnson fulminating on the miseries of self-delusion, lying, and marriages of prudence without affection. His literary criticism includes an interesting essay on the relationship between sound and sense in poetry, with particular reference to Milton's Paradise Lost, some of which is "remarkably defective in harmony". A selection of Johnson's verse features his most celebrated poem, a version of Juvenal's Tenth Satire transposed from ancient Rome to Johnson's contemporary London. Political writings include Johnson's thoughts on capital punishment and its lack of deterrent effect, together with fictional letters from a young woman betrayed into prostitution and condemned by society and the law. The celebrated open Letter to his Patron Lord Chesterfield following the completion of the Dictionary includes the sarcastic lines "I have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one smile of encouragement, or one word of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before". Johnson's Shakespeare criticism and his biographies of poets are equally sharp. 818pp, introductory notes and annotations.