Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of English literature, as a poet, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Volume 4 contains the third part of the Lives of the Poets, with some additional biographical works on historical figures including Drake and Ascham.
This collected edition of Samuel Johnson's writings was published by his literary executor, the musicologist Sir John Hawkins, in 1787.