Hawkin's 'Life of Johnson' is still being prepared for download. It will involve manual typing to protect the book, which is 220 years old. The Thrale anecdotes are available free under 'download'. Due to the size of the task there will be little other work on the site for a while. Unfortunately progress is slow but it will happen.

Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire on the 18th September, 1709. His

father, Michael Johnson, was a not very successful bookseller, although his shop (nowadays the

birthplace museum), was, and is, a very substantial building. His father also carried on his

trade at local markets, and was a publisher also in a small way. He suffered from the

condition known at the time as 'melancholy', nowadays, depression. His mother was a woman

of sound sense, and well aware of her son's extraordinary abilities.

Samuel was reputed as a child to have a phenomenal memory; it is recorded that

only a little after he had learnt to read, his mother set him to memorise the collect for the

day from the book of common prayer, and went upstairs, leaving him to his studies.

On reaching the 2nd floor, she heard him following her, and, on questioning him, discovered that

he had memorised it. At the age of 9 he read Hamlet and was frightened by the ghost. He received his

primary and secondary education mainly at Lichfield, later at the school at

Stourbridge for about a year. This was followed by a year or two of self-directed study, or loitering,

depending upon which authority is to be believed.

Johnson started his first year at Pembroke college, Oxford, apparently on an unreliable

assurance of support from a friend or member of his family, at the age of 19, but left in

1731 without a degree, on the grounds of financial necessity. He had been happy at Pembroke,

and, referring to the number of poets produced by the college, remarked, "Sir, we are a nest

of singing birds.' For a few months he was an usher ( a sort of assistant teacher) at a

school in Market Bosworth. He was not happy there and left after a few months.

He was then fortunate to be invited to stay with his friend, Mr. Hector, at his lodgings in

Birmingham, where he met Mr. Hector's landlord, Mr. Warren. Mr Warren was a firmly

established bookseller in Birmingham, and Johnson's extensive knowledge of literature was

of great use to him. Johnson also produced a small number of essays published in a journal

owned by Mr Warren. Whilst in Birmingham, Johnson became acquainted with a Mr Harry Porter,

who shortly afterwards died.