Samuel Johnson, poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, made important contributions to English literature. He was born on 18 September 1709 in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, in the family home above his wealthy father's bookshop. His mother, Sarah Ford, was 40 when she gave birth to him. It was feared that he would die at an early age, but his health improved. He was tormented by illness all his life. As a child he had scrofula, a disease thought curable by royalty. A doctor advised him to be touched by royalty and he received his royal touch from Queen Anne in 1712. The royal touch was not effective in curing Johnson and an operation was performed leaving him with scars on his face and body. A few months later his younger brother, Nathaniel, was born. His father was unable to keep up with his debts and the family could no longer live the lifestyle they had been living. Johnson's parents were proud of the signs of intelligence he demonstrated as a child. He had the ability to memorize and recite passages at a young age. While attending Lichfield Grammar School he began to have tics and make strange gestures which would affect how people would view him after meeting him. He excelled in his high school studies, especially Latin, and was promoted to high school at the age of nine. When he was 16 his future was uncertain because his father was deeply in debt and forced him to work in his father's bookstore sewing books. During this period he read various works and developed his literary knowledge. Three years later, his mother's cousin died and left enough money to send Johnson back to school. He attended Pembroke College, Oxford where he read to excess… half the paper… a tour of Scotland; he recorded their journey in Voyage to the Western Isles of Scotland (1775). Johnson's last major work, the ten-volume biographical and critical Prefaces to the Works of the English Poets (also known as the Lives of the Poets), was completed when he was seventy-two years old. This is a series of biographical and critical studies of fifty-two English poets. Johnson's final years were saddened by the deaths of his old friends, Dr. Robert Levett, and of Thrale, and by an argument with Thrale's widow over his remarriage which to Johnson seemed an inappropriate haste. Following a series of illnesses he died on 13 December 1784 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. After his death, Johnson was recognized as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism and as the only great critic of English literature. Works Citedwikipedia.com