Samuel Johnson (1709-84) was recognized in his own day as a sage, and has become a myth. No one has a higher visibility in mid-Hanoverian culture and no one embodies so fully the temper of his time. Crotchety and individualistic, even isolated, in his private circumstances, backward-looking and ulta-orthodox in many of his opinions, Johnson nevertheless made his mark upon his epoch in a unique fashion. He has acquired a persona which goes beyond his literary achievement, and the development of that role began in his own lifetime. In this volume Pat Rogers examines Johnson's position in his age and his relations with colleagues and friends, the breadth of his interests and the achievement of his writings, including the Dictionary, his edition of Shakespeare, and the influential Lives of the Poets.