Later Johnson

No project of Johnson's was longer in its gestation than his edition of Shakespeare's plays. In 1744, Johnson was a struggling young writer, subsisting largely on the work he submitted to Gentleman's Magazine publisher Edward Cave. He proposed that Cave publish an inexpensive edition of Shakespeare in ten volumes, for which he would provide extensive annotations and commentary. Johnson immersed himself in the project for months, and then published this prospectus, attached to his Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, as a sample of the critical apparatus he intended to produce. The plan was brought to a halt when a rival publisher, Jacob Tonson, threatened a lawsuit to block this new edition, asserting copyright over Shakespeare's works. Despite the questionable legal authority for such a claim, Cave abandoned the project. By 1756, Johnson was still struggling financially, but enjoyed a far more prominent reputation as the author of the Rambler and the Dictionary. He was able to contract with a consortium of publishers, wisely including Tonson this time, to produce his edition of Shakespeare. Having failed to learn his lesson from the ordeal of producing the Dictionary, Johnson undertook to complete the eight volumes in less than two years. Instead, the work dragged on until 1765, by which time those subscribers who had advanced the money for the work were beginning to share the complaint voiced by the poet Charles Churchill:
“He for Subscribers baits his hook,
And takes their cash—But where’s the Book?”
The finished product, however, would be worth the wait. Its Preface became the most important critical statement on Shakespeare in its century. The copy shown here belonged to David Garrick, who by 1765 had become the dominant figure on the London stage and the era's foremost dramatic interpreter of Shakespeare.