Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

Johnson was born in Lichfield, England, on September 18, 1709; his father Michael was a bookseller. Johnson was not a healthy infant, and there was considerable question as to whether he would survive: he was baptized almost immediately. Johnson was scarred from scrofula, and suffered a loss of hearing and was blind in one eye, thanks largely to nursing from a tubercular nursemaid. During his toddler years, he had an open "issue" in his arm, to drain fluids. Stop for a moment, and think about a small child being singled out in this way, and what it must have meant.

Johnson received a government pension in 1762. He was reluctant to accept it, but on accepting the purpose as being for past efforts, and not future efforts, he accepted it. The funds were a significant help, and the periods where he was threatened with debtor's prison were put behind him. Shortly after this period, Johnson met a young Scot named James Boswell (in 1763) in Thomas Davies bookstore in London. The two became fast friends. Boswell took notes of their conversations, and leveraged those notes and other material into the mammoth, landmark biography "The Life of Samuel Johnson."