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

by Henry Hitchings

By the early eighteenth century, France and Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Sensing the deficit, and impelled by a mixture of national pride and 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 three 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, and steeped in the richness of English literature. It would come to be seen as the most important British cultural monument of the eighteenth century, and its influence fanned out across Europe and throughout Britain's colonies - including, crucially, America.

Brilliantly entertaining and 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 and vision, his moments of despair, the mistakes he made along the way, and his ultimate triumph.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Language, Biography, Books About Books, Linguistics, British Literature

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 11, 2005

About the author

Henry Hitchings is the author of The Language Wars, The Secret Life of Words, Who’s Afraid of Jane Austen?, and Defining the World. He has contributed to many newspapers and magazines and is the theater critic for the London Evening Standard.

Reviews

[Cynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I attended the local community college in the early 1980s, a student in the library would approach the stand/podium where Johnson's Dictionary was housed. Somehow various of us would gather to read to each other a definition or two to the others. We would laugh as quietly as we could, smiled at each other, and went back to studying.

In grad school, I introduced the dictionary to the others in the group I studied with. We did something similar as we had done at the community college, but we were older, more worldly, just a little less impressed. I did what I could Dr Johnson.

Just as reading The Dictionary is more fun when reading with others, this biography of Dr Johnson and his Dictionary would have been more fun reading with some buddy readers or with a book club group.

I wanted to talk about older dictionaries of various languages, of academies, of empire, or cultural identity, of the changing nature of patronage, and more. . . . .The book was a dry without others to wink at, to smile with, to be sad with, to be delighted with, to wonder at with.

If you get a desire to read this book, I suggest you get yourself some people to read with.

Read for my personal challenge All Things Language in 2023.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hitchings' book is as much a promotion of Johnson's dictionary, as a piece of literature to read, as it is a biography of Dr. Johnson. It does both well.

Of particular interest to me. I had forgotten about the significance and culture of the coffee house during Johnson's time. The reminder of this bit of history makes the running gag in Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" about coffee houses being everywhere that the English were that much funnier. In his great buddy novel Pynchon shows Mason and Dixon served coffee by a Mr. Star buck in the American colonies when they arrive to survey the Mason Dixon Line. There is quite a bit of food and drink humor and I thought he was only referring to our current obsession with coffee. As I say, I had forgotten about a similar craze actually occurring during the era of M & D and therefore of Dr. J as well.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

We know that it's possible to write entertainingly about the process of writing a dictionary -- Simon Winchester has done it twice. Henry Hitchings doesn't have the knack. The word that comes to mind that best describes this book is "plodding".

The copy I bought was remaindered at $3.88. I can't say I was surprised.
A dull, pedestrian, aimless book. Though I dare say the scholarship was accurate.

Hitchings has recently come out with another book: "The Secret Life of Words". According to The New Yorker , "Hitchings offers a rich array of anecdotes and extracts, but the absence of a strong over-all argument deprives his account of momentum".

If you're looking for a present for the word addict on your holiday gift list, "Alphabet Juice", by Roy Blount Junior, looks to be a better bet (based on the first chapter, which I read in the New York Times).

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eminently readable book on a topic which could be pedantic and a heavy slog, this book also serves as a very brief biography of Johnson focusing on his achievement of the first English language dictionary. Organized in "alphabetical order", the chapters are titled with words from the dictionary that fit the topic of the chapter. The book is insightful and interesting, and certainly serves as a good substitute for reading Johnson's dictionary. It feels as if one breezily thumbed through pages looking at certain words and their definitions, with Hitchings pointing us towards particularly noteworthy, important, but also inane and ridiculous entries. If you were ever interested in the story of this dictionary without the commitment of a major Johnson biography, this book will do nicely.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary – the first comprehensive dictionary of English, which was published in 1755.

We start with a brief history of Johnson’s early life: his very modest upbringing in Litchfield; his education – and his obsessive reading habits; and his subsequent move to London where he worked as a jobbing writer. We hear about the Dictionary’s beginnings too, about the London booksellers who commissioned Johnson to write it, his reluctance to take it on, and the failed patronage of the Earl of Chesterfield. Then finally, work on the Dictionary begins, and we learn about the house in Gough Square where Johnson lived and worked and the team of amanuenses he gathered to help him.

With each Chapter titled with a headword from the Dictionary Hitchings inevitably introduces us to a wealth of Johnson’s definitions, some pithy (“patron, …commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid in flattery”), some sad (“melancholy, …a kind of madness, in which the mind is always fixed on one object”), some wrong (“pastern, the knee of a horse”), some that hint at the effort taken to dedicate eight years of his life to this work (e.g. “lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge”), and many others, almost all providing an insight into the thinking of the man himself. Hitchings also reveals some gems still extant in our modern-day dictionaries (“éclair, a cake, long in shape but short in duration”, Chambers, 13th Ed.), and litters his own text with words I had to look up (e.g. “rebarbative” meaning “repellent”), which would have annoyed me in any other book.

Dr Johnson’s Dictionary is obviously well-researched. It’s also well written – although heavy going in places – and I recommend it for any lover of English.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

If, at the beginning of the 18th century, France and Italy already had their own dictionaries, England, on the contrary, was lagging behind. Never mind! One man, alone, will attempt
to remedy to that: Samuel Johnson.

The son of a book dealer, autodidact, married to a very sick wife, struggling his whole life against both financial problems and a poor mental health, Samuel Johnson, character with an amazing intellectual strength, will nevertheless write more than 42,000 definitions which will remain THE English language's lexicographical reference for more than 150 years. In fact, published in 1755, it won't be supplanted unless by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and, even then, the OED itself will keep more than 1,700 of his definitions, words for words! And what definitions!

A unique writing style, erudite, witty, funny at times, Samuel Johnson succeeded doing in 8 years what 40 French academicians had struggled to achieve in more than 55: to 'fix' a language in a dictionary, where words are not only defined and illustrated by quotations, but, also, have their etymology retraced (at a time when philology itself didn't exist yet!). The results would be remarkable:

'Dull': not exhilarating, not delightful; as in "to make dictionaries is dull work"
'Lexicographer': a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge.'

And on. And on. And on! Here was a monument, one which became since a national icon in England and to whom Henry Hitchings pays a great tribute here; showing not only the genius of a man and his work, but, also, putting such endeavour within the intellectual storm of the times, when English language itself was being standardised, Johnson himself being one of its fiercer 'purist'. An highly entertaining biography!

[Kristy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who is currently working her way through the complete works of Samuel Johnson and who read and loved The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. this book about Dr. Johnson and the creation of his legendary dictionary seemed like a clear winner. While Hitchings' prose can be distractingly clever and often more in love with vocabulary than readability (you can tell he is a man who loves dictionaries) the book is well researched and nicely structured, and the fascinating story of the first definitive English dictionary and the man who wrote and compiled it wins out in the end. Even though he was active 250 years ago, Johnson's relationship to the written word is so modern and it is easy to get caught up in his desire to tease out meanings and origins of the written English language. There is a reason that biographies and stories about Samuel Johnson have become classics alongside his actual work -- he is a fascinating, flawed, personality filled writer, and as Hitchings shows us, that personality drives his epic years-long dictionary project.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging and enjoyable multifaceted account that is a partial biography of Johnson, a history of English lexicography, a social history of the author's and the publisher's trade in eighteenth-century England. Hitchings also discusses the remarkable influence of Johnson's dictionary from its 1755 first edition to the present.

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plodding along in this fact filled, wordy book, I soon found myself losing interest. I skipped a few chapters, just to make it to the end with a positive impression of the book. A good book that might have been better read by me, if I hadn’t already read too much in this season of Lent, during which I vowed to read less. Two stars for me, four for the book.

[Debbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

With the exception of a few delicious quotes of his, I knew very little about Dr. Johnson and his making of the dictionary before I read Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. I learned quite a few tidbits and got a bit of a feel for the man himself. He was a larger-than-life type personality and it seems that his dictionary reflects that.

Since I have a fascination with dictionaries and lexicography I found it to be an interesting book but not altogether captivating. It was obvious Johnson had a strong, opinionated personality who was also given to melancholy, but somehow it wasn’t fully fleshed out in this narrative. There are hints here and there of either OCD or Tourettes and there’s an occasional discussion of his illnesses but it seemed to be written as if the reader already knew these things. I found out far more by reading the Wiki article. I still enjoyed learning about Johnson and the making of his dictionary, which was written with much more detail. Dr. Johnson’s own definitions of the lexicographer being a “drudge” must be quite true as there’s really no “stranger than fiction” occurrence.

I would probably not recommend this as a first book on the subject, unless this is a topic that interests you . The book for that would be: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I loved this.

I read Simon Winchester’s book, ‘The Meaning of Everything’, about the OED a few years ago, and since the antepenultimate chapter of Henry Hitchings’ book on the OED’s mighty predecessor introduces the coming of the OED, ‘Dr Johnson’s Dictionary’ makes good reading for anyone contemplating giving the Simon Winchester a go.

I’ve always enjoyed Johnson’s writing, and am specially fond of ‘Rasselas’. Furthermore, I remember spending an enjoyable afternoon with the Bodleian’s copy of ‘The Dictionary’, though mostly I remember being fascinated by the bookworm tunnels and the words they inadvertently led me to. A fellow student, more diligent and less dilettante than me, spent rather longer with it and was especially delighted by ‘Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.’ He is now a Professor Emeritus at Jadavpur University in Kolkata.

Hitchings’ great strength is in translating his affection for and admiration of Johnson’s massy work into terms anyone can enjoy. He is not a ‘dry, humourless man’ (as he describes Noah Webster), and his sense of pleasure in reading the Dictionary and writing about Johnson’s endeavour and his achievement is often conveyed. For example, at the end of the chapter titled ‘X’, during which he discusses semantic change, and quotes several words that Johnson defines as they were used contemporaneously which have a different meaning today, he writes this: ‘And “jogger”, a word which will surely suggest to many readers of this book an image of healthy living at its most purgatorial, is reassuringly glossed by Johnson as “one who moves heavily and dully”.’

On another occasion, when considering Johnson’s extensive use of Latinisms, Hitchings gleefully records the following anecdote: ‘On his trip to the Hebrides with Boswell in 1773, [Johnson] used the word “depeditation” in reference to the actor Samuel Foote, who had suffered a broken leg. Like a Scrabble player, Boswell challenged this, and Johnson admitted he had made the word up, adding mischievously “that he had not made above three or four in his Dictionary”.’

And Hitchings is at pains to point out it was very much regarded both by Johnson and the public as ‘his’ Dictionary. Broadly, Hitchings’ narrative covers a brief introduction to Johnson’s early life and literary career, considers the nature of the mid-18th century and its passion for ordering the world, looks at the history of dictionaries of English, spends care in recording exactly how the Dictionary came about (a commercial undertaking by a conglomerate of booksellers), deals extensively with the melancholy and lassitude that afflicted Johnson halfway through his undertaking and how he was re-energized following his wife Tetty’s death (not because a burden was lifted but he was reminded that art is long and life is short), the significance of the Preface, publication, the Dictionary’s reception, and its consequent influence on both the study of language, imperial expansion and a sense of British identity.

This is achieved in a series of relatively short chapters each headed with a word from the Dictionary together with its definition, and this word defines the theme of the chapter. Thus ‘Higgledy-Piggledy’ introduces both Johnson’s changing systems of compiling words, their meanings, and quotations to illustrate their use, as well as the domestic chaos he faced in the early years; ‘Nicety’ deals with Johnson’s decisions about words that he considers improper to include (‘buggery’, for example) as well as the care he took generally to give as concise a definition as possible; and ‘Pleasureful’ looks at why actually reading dictionaries – as Browning, Malcolm X, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Arthur Scargill did/do – is a source of amusement and delight and, as Johnson was at pains to point out, educative. Often, it is observed, his choice of illustrative quotations was both pleasureful and, importantly, moral and pious.

I can’t help feeling that pleasure is what Hitchings has derived from writing this book. Reading Johnson’s dictionary has led him into biography, history, social history, the history of ideas, the commercial aspects of bookmaking and bookselling, the combat of envious or self-opinionated intellectuals, food, travel, religion and so on and so forth.

And, of course, a wealth of wonderful words which, though we may never use them, are a perpetual thrill to have encountered. In these Covid-19 times, could we not all usefully practise xenodochy? – and when it’s all over, the northern nations can look forward once again to australizing. We can castigate those who do not observe social (or physical) distancing as fopdoodles, and take it as our duty to stay fit and not become bedpressers. Dictionaries are – bad pun imminent – simply wonderful to scrabble around in.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was vaguely aware of Samuel Johnson and the writing of a comprehensive English dictionary and then the famous biography by Boswell, but this book put the dictionary endeavor into context and with entertaining detail. This book is brimming with anecdotes and surprising, entertaining words, just like that ground-breaking edition written by Johnson in the mid-1700s.

While the book can be a little repetitious at times in order to emphasize points, those points are really important if you want to understand the achievement of Johnson and its lasting impact. The achievement: almost by himself, Johnson researched and defined more than 40,000 words, looking into their multiple, nuanced definitions; tracing their roots; and providing illustrative quotes. The definitions themselves are, more often than not, moments of clarity and wit. The illustrative quotes represent the wide range of reading available at the time, but with an emphasis on morality (as Johnson saw it) and education.

This was done largely by one person, though with six or seven assistants who would write down the quotes he identified from his readings. But Johnson wrote the definitions (and took some from specialized dictionaries available at the time), decided which words would be published and which ignored, and pushed through with his vision of a book that was accessible to the average person while entertaining and sophisticated enough for poets and authors such as himself. And unlike great prior dictionaries in Italian and French, he did it in less than a decade, without the bureaucracy and delays that characterized other efforts across Europe.

To think about this achievement, just imagine how you would define the word right. (This is my example, not the author's.) There's right as in the direction or the mathematical angle. Right politically. Right morally. Right as in correct. Right as in right-handed. Right as is straightening or lining up (as in righting your balance). There's an expression like "right on." And more. That's one word. Now do that 40,000 times by reading and marking books and having your assistants write information on paper that you collate. With a quill pen dipped in ink. Under candle light. Right (as in affirmation!).

The book explains how Johnson did this by marking up books and, in a breakthrough idea, insisting that how the word is used in written context is a key representative sample of its use. This enabled referencing and lexicography for decades and centuries since, as well as entertained because Johnson selected his quotes with obvious joy. And the author writes of scores of people who were inspired by reading and using the dictionary to their own literary heights as poets and authors and lawmakers.

The highest praise I can give a book is that it makes me want to read more on the subject. This meets that subject, as I both will peruse the Johnson dictionary online and find a couple of biographies, whether Boswell's or a more contemporary one. Given the depth that Johnson gave to the dictionary in the 9-10 years it took for him to complete (while writing scores of magazine articles, reviews, and other works at the same time, plus letters), I'm sure there's a lot more to learn about this fascinating man.

[Patricia H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extraordinary read -- eloquent, gregarious, wordy, chewing, fun, and even a bit tedious with some of the details -- exactly what you'd hope for in a treatise about the Great Dictionary and the Great Man. The organization is delightful. The biography thorough enough for our enjoyment. The references to time and place, to culture and life, all sounded the right tones. The dedication to the tome was incredible. What research and patience must have gone into this! Congratulations to Henry Hitchings. I had visited Johnson's house on Gough Square, climbed the tight stairways, stood in the garret, and had to follow up with more! This book takes you there, gives you a sense of awe, and but leaves you seeing Johnson as a man (a genius, workaholic man).

[kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up not fully understanding what it was and I think I was not the right audience for it. However, I did find portions of the book interesting and I'm sure it's fantastic for anyone especially interested in life in 18th century England.

I thought it would be more about the process of compiling and writing the dictionary, and, while it is to a great degree, it is almost equally a biography of Samuel Johnson and description of the world he lived in. I was not familiar at all with Johnson previously and I wouldn't describe myself as interested in this period. I also felt like the author adopted a voice mimicking the propriety of the time. I trudged through the second half.

[Adam Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fascinating history of one of the greatest English dictionaries, told partly through its own definitions. Hitchings is not just a historian, but also a tour guide through the dictionary's treasures, showing the personal and cultural contexts of its peculiarities. Highly recommended for discerning dictionary users.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine first book by a gifted logophile and wordsmith. It was an overreach for him to make the chapter titles alphabetical, but Hitching’s exposition is almost always both sound and enjoyable. Hitching has no trouble stepping into first person when that approach seems sensible; and though I kept a dictionary within reach while I read this book, I enjoyed doing so.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting, and fairly balanced narrative of the incredible job Johnson produced in writing his first authoratative dictionary.

If you love dictionaries it is a must read. If you like history it is worth it as well.

[Bruce Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in English, Dr. Johnson, vocabulary or dictionaries- give this one a read. It is both instructional and interesting.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating account of Johnson and his incredible dictionary. Brilliantly told. A tour de force

[Amanda Borys · Rating 1 out of 5]

In a word - boring.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A serious yet gently humourous and very enjoyable biography of both Dr Johnson and his Dictionary.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written, entertaining stories.
Clever, dictionary-like alphabetically-ordered chapters. Helps to recall what each section was about.

Notes:
3...full of bluff confidence
19-coz...instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous & disssolute, his abilities might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous & wise
20...material anxiety of parents
23-at Oxford..."I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved henceforth not to listen to her siren strains."
25....the pinched & narrow world of Breadmarket Street
26... refused to look after his father's book stall ... later repented the decision ... "Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful.?
32...strange, so little reading, and so much writing ... an epdemical conspiracy for the destruction of paper"
44...reporting debates ...as many as 10,000 words a day
47 years in London, 18 different addresses... (usually moved for financial reasons)
48...he was impertinent and I beat him
50...18th c seized by a rage for order: the price tag, std wts & measures, highway signposts, account books & calendars
64...genial banter with his helpers....who did much to allay his melancholy ... employed his helpers partly due to charity ... dogsbodies with the status of intimates
even the most deadening work can be illuminated by a flash of fraternal good humour.
74...written w/o any patronage, not in the SOFT OBSCURITY of retirement, or under the shelter of university bowers, but amidst inconvenience & distraction, in sickness and sorrow.
.... the rodomontade of lavish self-recall was a vice he left to others.
His plan: beating the track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution
His negligent treatment of his library .... surgical perhaps, but veering towards butchery.
85...Gough Square house as convalescent ward.
94...Black Adder episode..Ink & Incapability
The Dictionary a canon of treasurable authors & anthologizes their writings in a giant commonplace book.
110...Eco: dict's are impoverished encyclopedias
112...don't lapse into indolence, lest you become a slave to melancholy
115...upon entering a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude.
122...the happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning
130... J encountered Ben Franklinat a charity event .... what passed between them we sadly do not know
137...strut definition: walk with affected dignity [Nature Boy Buddy Rogers]
138...bagnio brothels disguised as public baths .... His cousin expired in one. .... "venting secretions", an archly humorous touch
139...for propriety, buggery was excluded ... f_ck & c_nt are absent ... neither found its way into a mainstream dictionary until the 1960s. ... bedpresser: a heavy, lazy fellow
141...drawn to the idea of a Dictionary, because "though it could not make my life envied, it would keep it innocent"
160...sturdy, in his grief at Tetty's death ...since the few moments remaining are to be considered the last days of Heaven, not one is to be lost.
164...relationship between coffee and entertainment (newspapers) ... coffeehouses were not so much gentlemanly snuggeries as commercial exchanges ... the precursor of modern offices
168...professional police force 1829, Sir Robert Peel
181...Patron: Chesterfield story
196...open the D at random, playing the sortes Johnsonianae
250...I do not wish to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I believe the gentleman is an attorney
Acknowledgements ... I have chosen not to include a bibliography of works consulted. ... it would have considerably increased the book's size, and ---to paraphrase Johnson---I was wary lest the bulk of this volume fright away potential readers. OTOH, an abbreviated biblio could not have done justice to the wealth of scholarship relating to Johnson and his age. I have therefore chosen to discharge specific intellectual debts in my notes.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was one of those bright, autodidactic kids whose idea of a great way to pass a rainy afternoon was to curl up with a volume of the encyclopedia, or with a large dictionary, and just browse. I delighted in learning new stuff, and of a very miscellaneous nature. (I was no doubt born to become a reference librarian.) I learned about the history of dictionaries in library school, but Hitchings (whose first book this is, and who did his PhD thesis on Johnson) goes into far greater depth and does it in a highly entertaining way. It usually surprises people to learn that Johnson’s work was not only the first “complete” monolingual dictionary in English, it was the first in any language. The Sumerians and every major power since produced lengthy word lists -- lexicons -- to assist in translating technical terms from one language to another, but no one had ever attempted to define or explain a language to its own speakers. (And the first attempt by the French Academy in the previous century never got past the letter “L.”) Johnson expected the project to require perhaps three years but, of course, it took far longer than that -- and when the two-volume work with its 42,000 entries was complete, it became almost immediately an icon for the English nation and for the 18th century. It also quickly became an important tool in the furtherance of British linguistic imperialism worldwide.

The author has organized the book in thirty-five chapters with headings in alphabetical order -- Amulet, Darkling, Factotum, Lexicographer, Opinionist, Ubiquity, etc., each representing a word and its definition. He outlines Johnson’s uncomfortable early life and the path he followed as a young man through education and a dedication to literature, to his fascination with the English language. Then he considers the Doctor’s methods and conclusions; for him, it was what is now called a “learning experience,” and his post-dictionary literary writing is noticeably different from what came before. The dictionary also is famous for its incorporation of the compiler’s often acerbic opinions (and often with a political flavor), but Johnson was an extremely widely read and very astute thinker with a knack for concise and precise definition. It’s interesting to note words whose meanings have changed radically in the past 250 years: “Fake” meant only a coil of rope, while “orgasm” denoted “sudden vehemence.” The Dictionary of the English Language is long out of copyright, though it has never gone out of print. I recommend that when you finish this fascinating book, you go online and download a copy of the original in PDF format, from The Gutenberg Project or elsewhere. You’ll be set for that next rainy afternoon.

[Li'l Vishnu · Rating 3 out of 5]

If a similar vagueness clouds Johnson’s definition of ‘adder’ (‘a serpent, a viper, a poisonous reptile; perhaps of any species’), his definition of ‘tarantula’ is positively opaque. Johnson tell us that it is ‘an insect whose bite is only cured by music’. This curious belief is recorded by Samuel Pepys among others, and had recently been confirmed by a Neapolitan violinist, who had described in the Gentleman’s Magazine his success in curing a man who had been bitten under the lip of his ear. Johnson, with a touch of self-mockery, quotes Locke: ‘He that uses the word tarantula, without having any idea of what it stands for, means nothing at all by it.’

- p. 175

This could have gone two ways: either the glorifying of how Johnson’s feat overshadowed the work of leagues of other committees (thus reinforcing how trumped up collaboration can be), OR it could just meander through all the silly definitions. It kind of went both ways, but I’m glad it was mostly the second. I don’t care for platitudes. Not in the summertime.

While I found Johnson to be a sort of stodgy character, his definitions are clearly a riot. Thanks in part to some of the eccentric characters he borrowed the more clinical terms from. Particularly fun was the chapter called Pleasure, which examines some of the contributions of a fellow named Browne, who has his own catalog of fauna and flora in the intriguing Pseudodoxia.

Especially valuable was [Psuedodoxia’s:] resistance to popular myth. Yet one of its defining traits is that it gives space to the very myths and misconceptions it aims to explode, and its most interesting part--certainly for the modern reader, and perhaps also for Johnson--is not its defeat of erroneous beliefs, but rather the errors themselves, which by turns amuse, horrify, seduce and bewilder. So, for example, Browne reminds us that people used to believe that badgers have legs longer on one side than the other, that a beaver will bite off his own testicles to evade capture, and that a female bear gives birth to young that resemble blobs of jelly, which she (literally) licks into shape.

- p. 201

Half the book is spent examining the peculiar entries throughout the dictionary, while the rest of it is a biography of this woeful man. I did like the section examining how he assembled the dictionary in a series of notebooks, only to discover his shortsightedness after a few years, then was forced to take the dictionary in a new direction.

I am also pleased to report that ‘anatiferous’ can be simply defined as ‘producing ducks’. Thanks.

[Trenchologist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really liked the mix of Johnson the man versus Johnson the scholar, what words meant then, what words have fallen into complete obscurity, what common words were somehow decided not to be included in the Dictionary. I didn't like as much the almost pedantic rhythm of the whole, the listing-fashion most of the words covered were recounted in; it's difficult to succinctly describe why, but somehow the book lacked. It wasn't snappy or compelling, for all I enjoyed the theme, the sometime humor and parade of words, the neatly sketched historical contextualization. A bit of perspective on Johnson's behemoth job: it was up to him to choose, define, and provide examples in published, written use, all the words that would appear in the Dictionary; he managed just over 42,000 words, dredged from plays and novels and essays of all ilk from the soupy, slurry English language that, at the time, was estimated to have hundreds of thousands separate words and meanings. But like all great undertakings that would be what everything after was built upon, it had to start somewhere.

[E. C. Koch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the latest of a string of history-of-the-English-language books I've read recently and Hitchings does a good job here. This book was built out of Hitchings' dissertation, and he skillfully walks the reader through some pertinent issues surrounding the language ante-1755, and offers a description of how Johnson went about his work, while also giving just enough biographical information. Hitchings also catches the reader up on certain 18th-c. social issues, which he addresses by way of some of Johnson's more esoteric definitions, and I thought that that was clever (although I think that beginning each chapter with another dictionary def. is cheesy and cliched). So if you're interested in the history of the language and want to know why the first dictionary was such a monumental step in the process of English becoming the lingua franca of pretty much everything, then give this a shot.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

What Simon Winchester did for the Oxford English Dictionary in The Meaning of Everything (**** Nov/Dec 2003), Hitchings does for its predecessor, Samuel Johnson's dictionary. Hitchings's delightful book is infused with details about the history of lexicography and the English language, and he places the dictionary in the context of Johnson's difficult life and the fame that followed. Cleverly written (though Hitchings misses a few definitions here and there), Defining the World is organized much like a dictionary, with each chapter dubbed with a word from Johnson's tome, including the definition. Hitchings documents Johnson's arduous labor and the impact that the book continues to have on English language and literature.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Dan Bentley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but in a style obviously written by an academic. You are always studying Johnson, not living with him. He is a character through a lens; a lens which always stays in the picture.

Some cool facts, and stories, though.

The concept of the book is that each chapter is a word in the dictionary, and it progresses through the alphabetical order. He does it pretty well, though once or twice I thought the chapter was an essay that could have survived anywhere in the book.

Essentially a chronological telling of the story of this book.

Tells us way too little about the immediate impact of the book. Just when he's done with the dictionary, the story is done. Why not talk about what happened?

Good if you're interested in the dictionary as a concept; otherwise I'd pass.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may be partial to the Oxford English Dictionary, but I couldn’t help but pick up this slender volume on Johnson’s definitive dictionary that was made and made famous a hundred years before James Murray organized and edited the OED. Author Hitchings nicely charts the lifework of Samuel Johnson by organizing his book into alphabetical chapters. Although his narrative style is nowhere near as captivating as Simon Winchester in the latter’s “The Professor and the Madman” and “The Meaning of Everything” – both on the subject of Murray and the making of the OED – I found Hitchings’ concise biography to a nice appetizer to the Boswell’s gargantuan work on “The Life of Johnson.” (An Herculean task that I’ll admittedly leave until I am in my old age.)

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essential reading for anyone interested in Samuel Johnson and his dictionary, which, warts and all, was the standard English dictionary for 100 years or so. Hitchings does a good job of pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of Johnson's extraordinary work. His view can be summed up with one sentence from the first chapter of this book: "Unlike other dictionaries, Johnson's is a work of literature."

About halfway through reading this book, I found and downloaded an e-book version of the fourth edition of Johnson's dictionary, after only having access to excerpts for years. It was a revelation, and greatly enhanced my reading of Hitching's book. But more on that later....