Month: January 2019

Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) was a poet, translator and writer in his spare time. This is probably why his most famous work, ‘The Canterbury Tales’, was either never finished or was partially lost. It may also be the reason that it was written in English, rather than French as was the norm in those days for professional authors, since it was only the upper-class who could read.

Chaucer began his working career as a servant to an aristocratic family. From there he continued to climb the ranks of the royal circle and held some very responsible positions. His writing sideline attracted the attention of patrons such as the Duke of Lancaster, who also became his brother-in-law.

Chaucer is known as ‘the first English author’ and ‘The Canterbury Tales’ was one of the first books published by William Caxton with his new-fangled printing press in 1476. Only twenty-four of a possible sixty-two tales have been preserved and these are in the British Library. These are 15th century copies ~ nothing remains of the original manuscript in Chaucer’s own handwriting.

(Image: British Library at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) grew up in Staffordshire with a bookshop on the ground floor of his home, his father being a bookseller. As a sickly but precocious child, Samuel spent much of his time reading. He went on to create the revered ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ in 1755, which stood as the ultimate authority on spelling, meaning, usage and pronunciation for the next 125 years.

It took nine years to produce, with the help of six assistants. The Earl of Chesterfield gave him the contract in 1746 and paid him £1,575. The Earl was thrilled with the eventual result. Not only did it give definitions but also more than 200,000 examples of correct use, borrowed from writers such as Shakespeare and Milton.

Johnson had started the project with the idea that it would “fix” the language, but by the end of the nine years he had come to realise that it is folly to imagine that any dictionary “can embalm [the] language and secure it from corruption and decay” (Johnson, quoted in Crystal, 2007). Nevertheless, Johnson’s dictionary was a major milestone in the English language and set a high standard for all future efforts.

(Image: Alex Brown on Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)