Samuel Johnson was an English writer who was born on September 18, 1709, and died on December 13, 1784. He was called "Dr. Johnson" by many people. He was a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he was "possibly the most famous writer in English history." Johnson became famous in his later years, and after he died, more and more people thought he had a lasting effect on literary criticism. Some even said he was the only truly great critic of English literature. In the 20th century, his ideas shaped the way people thought about literature, and his influence on biography will last for a long time. Johnson's Dictionary had a big impact on Modern English, and it was the best dictionary until the Oxford English Dictionary came along 150 years later. The biographer of Samuel Johnson, Walter Jackson Bate, chose James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson as "the most famous single work of biographical art in all of literature."