Who Wrote "The Lives Of The Poets"�?

This is a collection of short biographical essays by Dr Samuel Johnson, who is nowadays better remembered as the author of the first real English dictionary. He had already written a number of "lives" when he was asked to write essays on the poets as prefaces for an edition of poetry.

Altogether he produced 52, starting with the 17th century poet Abraham Cowley. (This essay contains a discussion of metaphysical poetry that is still studied.) They are written in Johnson's distinctive style – outspoken, serious but often humorous, very learned but commonsense. He rarely worried about objectivity – if he disliked something about an author he said so – and never let an author's fame or status overawe him. Writing of the revered John Milton, for instance, he summed up his first marriage thus: "His first wife left him in disgust, and was only brought back by terror."

The lives of John Dryden and John Gay are generally regarded as being among the best examples in the collection; the biography of Richard Savage is now seen as a masterpiece of prose, but historically inaccurate.