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

A Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of the Year

In 1746, Samuel Johnson undertook the Herculean task of writing the first comprehensive English dictionary. Imagining he could complete the job in three years, Johnson in fact took more than eight, and the dictionary itself turned out to be as much a work of literature as it was an invaluable reference. In alphabetized chapters, from "Adventurous" to "Zootomy," Henry Hitchings tells of Johnson's toil and triumph and offers a closer look at the definitions themselves, which were alive with invention, poetry, erudition, and, at times, hilarious imprecision. The story of Johnson's adventure into the essence of words is an entertainment that "sparkles on every page" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

The New York Times - Charles McGrath

As Henry Hitchings points out in Defining the World, his concise and informative history of Johnson's dictionary and how it came to be written, the impulse behind it was the great 18th-century passion for organization and taxonomy - the belief that all knowledge could be codified and, indeed, that all of it was knowable. Johnson was assisted by a half-dozen amanuenses (most of them Scots, as it happened), but the dictionary was essentially a one-man operation, both the product and reflection of his prodigious learning. As Hitchings's title suggests, Johnson's dictionary really did encompass the world as it was then understood. It incorporates the latest in scientific knowledge (defining worlds like atom, gravity, parallax and gymnospermous) and also such new fads and innovations as toyshops, tobacconists, beauty spots and umbrellas.