As a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, Samuel Johnson's contributions to English literature cannot be understated. His single greatest achievement is widely considered to be his "Dictionary of the English Language," which after nine years of research was first published in 1755. Until the publication of the "Oxford English Dictionary" over a century and a half later it was widely considered to be the preeminent dictionary of the English language. The work brought him much fame and success and had a profound impact on modern English literature. Johnson's contributions to the periodicals "The Rambler" and "The Idler" are considered to be some of the greatest examples of literary criticism of all time. This collection includes some of the best examples of his essays from those periodicals as well as a representative selection of his poetry, prose as well as his famous allegorical novel "The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia." Readers of this volume will most assuredly agree that Johnson was a writer of immense talent whose genius is exhibited by the sheer breadth of his body of work.