JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY: AN ANTHOLOGY; ED. BY DAVID CRYSTAL

"Ranging from beauty-spot to coffeehouse, jogger to posturemaster, quack to rocket, this is an anthology of the 4,000 most fascinating entries from the most influential lexicon ever written, Dr. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. Assembled by world-renowned language authority David Crystal, it is a treasure-trove of familiar, unusual and sometimes bizarre words, covering subjects from fashion to food and philosophy to electricity, brimming with colourful, meticulous (and often humorous) definitions and boasting literary illustrations from Shakespeare to Milton. This generous selection fully conveys Johnson's passion for his native tongue - whether formal or 'low', deriving from Staffordshire or Scotland - bringing alive the innovations, fads and crazes of his day (from cricket to periwig to tea) and showing how distinctive the vocabulary of the time was - yet also how it overlaps with ours in unexpected and amusing ways."--Jacket.