London publishers were acutely aware of the need for a national dictionary. Samuel Johnson was approached and he agreed to tackle the task. A group of publishers underwrote this expensive project. Johnson was to be paid £1,575 ($2,034.31) in installments, out of which he was to defray expenses and pay for any help he received. Johnson was aware that he faced a huge task; he visualized his effort not only as a scholar filling a void, but also as an Englishman contributing to the national literature.
Johnson's friend Dr. William Adams marveled that Johnson expected to finish the project in three years; Adams pointed out that it had taken the French Academy's forty members forty years to compile the French dictionary (in fact, it had taken the French Academy fifty-five years). Johnson was said to have replied: "Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."
The task would take Johnson far longer than three years. The contract had been signed in June, 1746; the Dictionary did not appear in print until 1755. While most hailed the dictionary as the legitimate monument of erudition that it was, others were quick to express reservations. As Johnson himself once observed, nothing is more common than the erroneous belief that one is displaying judgment or taste by showing an unwillingness to be pleased. Rewarding and fitting were the words of Marquis Nicolini, president of the Accademia della Crusca, when he stated that "this very noble work" will be "a perpetual monument of fame to the author, an honour to his own country in particular, and a general benefit to the Republic of Letters throughout all Europe."
In October 2003, a conservation treatment on these two volume set of first edition 1755 Samuel Johnson dictionaries, which are part of Dr. Joe Barnhart's collection, was completed by School of Information , University of Texas at Austin faculty, Consuela Metzger. The conservation work was funded by the Joe Barnhart Foundation. Their donation was matched by the preservation Conservation Studies NEH grant. The display case was designed and made by local craftsmen, John Amthor and Polo Yzaguirre and paid by the Joe Barnhart Foundation.
