Johnson's Dictionary: A Modern Selection

The greatness of Johnson's Dictionary is in good part in its literary quality. Johnson is a writer of great verve, humor, satiric sharpness, moral insight and wit. The Dictionary is of course not to be chewed and digested, but rather to be tasted for its special treats. An abridgement like this provides the reader with a more portable source of pleasure, a volume which can be schlepped along , and read on bus or train. I would strongly recommend that along with this work the reader get a hold of Hitchings work on the story of the making of the Dictionary.

Henry Hitchings, in his brilliant `Dr Johnson's Dictionary' (see my review), recommends this abridged edition of the Dictionary. It, too, is a treat for all who love words and are interested in the 18th century. It reproduces more than 3,000 entries of the 42,733 in the original First Edition. It includes: the Plan that Johnson originally submitted to the Earl of Chesterfield (15 pages), from which, however, he was to deviate later in several important respects; Johnson's splendid Preface (20 pages); Lynch's own excellent Introduction (21 pages); 19 pages of Lynch's notes on those entries for which he felt a special explanation was necessary; and some very useful appendices. One lists (play by play) all the words in this edition for whose illustrations Johnson quoted plays by Shakespeare; another does the same for other authors (author by author - including the Bible); and a third, subject by subject, of what Lynch calls `piquant terms'. These include nearly three columns of `Inkhorn Terms', which would make for a splendid party game in which participants would be invited to guess their meaning. Lynch has in fact published a deck of 48 cards for just this purpose. (Here is a taster from the book, a selection from from just two letters: macilent, mactation, macilent, madefy, maffle, malvaceous, maritated, meracious, moky, morigerous, multiscious, mundivagant, mundungus, mussitation, mynchen, nimiety, nombles, nosology, nosopoetick, nubble, nummery, nuncupative.) This is all great fun; but there also is a lot of serious pleasure to be gained from dipping into this book for Johnson's definitions and for the examples he has culled from his wide reading. (It is a pity, though, that he did not specify more closely the place where his sources are to be found - partly, no doubt, as Hitchings explained, because Johnson often quoited from memory. For Biblical sources he does usually quote chapter and verse. Sometimes he does the same for Milton, but mostly not. Where his source is named simply `Shakespeare' or `Shak.Tit.And.', we could of course consult a Shakespeare Concordance for the precise place. But where there are no Concordances, a bare reference to `Dryd' or to `Swift' is a little frustrating. Another opportunity, perhaps, for a party game among the learnéd?)

The advent of the 18th century required a formal English dictionary for the keepers of the language. The Samuel Johnson Dictionary served as the authority until the Oxford English Dictionary was first published. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary has an extensive index of literary citations. There are sarcasms; such as, " That one English soldier will beat 10 of France" by Gerrick. The volume has classic words and sayings of the 18th century . For instance, the following words are defined: - to aberuncate is to pull by the roots - abba is Syrian for father - bisson means blind - to blood-let is to bleed - cit is a city inhabitant - ciliary belongs to the eyelids - crinigerous is hairy - dalliance is fondness - epulation is a banquet or a feast This work would be valuable for any student of fine English literature and early American literature. Every literary library should have at least one copy or more for research purposes. The volume is easy to read and reasonably priced.

Though at heart I'm strictly an OED man, and at work I tend to use the more practical Merriam-Webster's, I've always had a special place in my heart for Samuel Johnson's masterpiece, and I've cherished my facsimile copy (never had the $10,000 an original copy would set me back). I'm a huge fan of the quirky charm and literary excellence that went into this unabashedly biased dictionary, so I giddily anticipated this new edition. After flipping through it at the bookstore, however, I was a little disappointed that it didn't offer much over my old facsimile copy. Though the new edition does include Johnson's original "Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language," I have that printed in another volume, and the reduction of the book to "selections" really cuts the book too short to warrant my buying it again. That said, the entries that made the cut are still fabulous. You have to love a lexicographer ("a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge") who had the courage, interest, and patience to write an entire dictionary by himself but also had the modesty to admit that any mistakes were due to "ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance."

.In the 18th century, dictionaries weren't just consulted, they were browsed. That was largely thanks to Samuel Johnson's mammoth 1755 achievement, wherein he defined not just the difficult words, but also common words found in everyday speech; to their definitions, he added illustrative quotations from the finest works -- creating a volume that was a pleasure to read, an education, and one which provoked the reader down long paths. If you have the AMS reprint of Johnson's Dictionary (reprinted in the 1970's) you know it's a heavy volume, and not easy to sit in your lap. But Jack Lynch has extracted over 3,000 of the entries into a volume you can not only hold in your lap, but enjoy reading: the print is not tiny, so it's no strain. And it's a pleasure to read.Jack Lynch has also provided an informative, breezy introduction, which puts Johnson's Dictionary in the context or prior efforts and those that followed, describes Johnson's task and process, and tells you the impact that Johnson had. A wonderful addition is in the back, wherein there are some great footnotes (such as, Johnson's definition of war was part of a US Supreme Court decision regarding the US decision to bomb Kosovo) and a reverse index of the types of words to be found... Jack Lynch ALSO provides a special Shakespearean index -- so you can look up which words Johnson supported with quotations from The Bard.I already had the 1970s reprint, as well as the Cambridge CD-ROM, and wasn't sure I needed this. But I'm glad I bought it, it's wonderful to have, even for me.(By the way, I am not related to Jack Lynch, so it's not like I'm a family member trying to boost his sales.)