Six Chief Lives

Six Chief Lives by Samuel Johnson, 456 pages

In 1773, a group of London publishers commissioned Dr Johnson to supply short biographical sketches to accompany an anticipated series of new editions of seventeenth and eighteenth century poetry.  The completed collection of biographies, originally planned to consist of no more than a few pages for even the most celebrated poets, was eventually published in ten volumes as Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and instantly became a landmark of biography and literary criticism.  Six Chief Lives includes only the most remarkable entries: Milton, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Gray.