The Blackadder Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Samuel Johnson
150px‎
Nationality English
Occupation Writer
First appearance "Ink and Incapability"
Last appearance "Ink and Incapability"
Episode count 1 Episode
Played by Robbie Coltrane

Samuel Johnson was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer.

In Blackadder the Third he is portrayed by Robbie Coltrane in the episode "Ink and Incapability".

Samuel Johnson (Robbie Coltrane) seeks Prince George's patronage for his new book, A Dictionary of the English Language. The Prince – seeking to amend his reputation as an "utter turnip-head" – is interested, but Blackadder tries to turn him against the idea, condemning the dictionary as "the most pointless book since How to Learn French was translated into French". It soon emerges that Blackadder resents Johnson for apparently ignoring his novel.

Johnson has a meeting with the Prince, during which George fails to grasp the purpose of the Dictionary and Blackadder infuriates Johnson by continuously inventing and using new words in order to convince him that his work is incomplete. However, on learning that Dr. Johnson had also intended, if given the Prince's patronage, to promote Edmund: A Butler's Tale – a book Johnson considers to be the only one better than his – Blackadder persuades George that he should, in fact, support the dictionary. However, Baldrick had burnt the novel earlier and there was no way to prove Blackadder was the author, to which Samuel comments "a burnt novel is like a" at which point a frustrated Blackadder cuts him off. Later Baldrick shows Samuel his novel, to Samuel's horror he forgot to put in the word sausage in the dictionary and shouts "SAUSAGE, SAUSAGE!" before throwing the dictionary away, frustrated that his dictionary was incomplete and that he had forgotten such a common word. Blackadder also discovers that Johnson forgot the word Aardvark as well.

External Links[]

Advertisement