The career of Samuel Johnson, as recounted here by Lawrence Lipking, aims to prove that a writer can be both hack and hero. It further argues that academic fashions may be a bit hasty in pronouncing, after Roland Barthes, the death of the author. This is a text about how an author is made, not born, the story of how Samuel Johnson lived - and lives - in his work. Tracing Johnson's rocky climb from anonymity to fame, in the course of which he came to stand for both the greatness of English literature and the good sense of the common reader, it describes how this life transformed the very nature of authorship. Beginning with the defiant letter to Chesterfield that made Johnson a celebrity, this text offers fresh readings of all the writer's major works, viewed through the lens of two ongoing preoccupations: the urge to do great deeds; and the sense that bold expectations are doomed to disappointment. Johnson steered between the twin perils of ambition and despondency. Mounting a challenge to the emerging industry that glorified and capitalized on Shakespeare, Johnson instead stressed the playwright's power to cure the illusions of everyday life.