Making his name

In 1737 Johnson went to London to work for Edward Cave, the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine. Parliament did not then permit reports of its debates, and Cave published a column called "Debates in the Senate of Lilliput"—the name is taken from the first book of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels —for which Johnson, among others, wrote re-creations of actual parliamentary speeches. Johnson also published London, a Poem (1738) and The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), two "imitations" of the Roman writer Juvenal (c. 60–c.140). In 1749 Johnson completed Irene, a play in verse, which was produced by Garrick and earned Johnson £300 (about $436).

In the early 1750s Johnson, writing at the rate of two essays a week, published two