he planned to call a Skipper’s Edition of Scott but the publisher insisted
that to most people a “skipper” was a ship’s navigator and that the
title would suggest only a book to help a skipper pass the time whenever
his ship was becalmed. To Johnson’s dismay, Condensed Classics was
the publisher’s choice. About half the reviews were favorable, but those
critics opposed were violent, indignant and horrified and “one might
infer that I was about to garble the writing of the Apostle, Paul.”

By July, 1879, the “migrant worker aspect” of their profession had
forced the Johnsons to move from Montclair, New Jersey, to Staten
Island. A short while later they returned to New York City.

In the ensuing twenty—five years, Dr. Johnson was a familiar figure on
the Manhattan literary scene, accomplishing a prodigious amount of
work and garnering three honorary degrees (AM. in 1873, Ph.D. in
1888, and LL.D. in 1893) from his alma mater, the University of
Rochester. During this period, he wrote a dozen original volumes of
history, fiction, essays, and verse and edited a number of histories,
cyclopedias, anthologies, and other reference books. He edited the
Annual Cyclopaedia, 1883-1902; the Cyclopaedia of American Biography,
1886-1889; the Standard Dictionary, 1892-1894; an authorized History of
the Colombian Exposition, 1898; and the Universal Cyclopaedia, 1900-1904.
In 1882 he wrote A History of the French War, A History of the War
Between the United States and Great Britain in 78 72- 78 75; and was associated
with Charles A. Dana in the compilation of Fifty Perfect Poems. His
Short History of the War of Secession was published in 1888. Other titles
among his works are Three Decades, 1895; The End of a Rainbow, an
American Story, 1892; The World’s Great Books (40 vol.), 1898-1901;
Alphabet of Rhetoric, 1903; Author’s Digest (20 vol.), 1908.

Perusing clippings found in the manuscript volumes, one gathers
that when Dr. Johnson was not wielding his editorial pencil, he was
enjoying a busman’s holiday by penning letters to the editors of several
Manhattan newspapers. In their columns he expressed his views on a
variety of timely topics. These ranged from simplified spelling, which
he said could, at best, save only a single line of type in an average-
length book, to the declaration by three eminent writers that Sacco
and Vanzetti were innocent. John Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, and
H. G. Wells, who had come from England expressly to observe the
famous trial, stated the opinion to which Johnson took exception.

His remarks concerning our national defense could well have been
written by one of today’s political columnists. He spoke of the United
States as “the choicest slice of the great melon” and warned “ . . . it
behooves us never to forget for a moment what a temptation it presents

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