Lot Details
Lot 184
BOSWELL, JAMES The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological o...
. London: Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, 1791. First edition, one of 1750 copies, second state, with the correct reading "give" on line 10 of page 135. Two volumes, early (and probably original) boards with blue paper covering, rebacked later in brown morocco, and with the supralibros of Robert Tyndall Hamilton Bruce blocked on the upper cover of each volume, and his monogram on the spines. 11 1/2 x 9 inches (29 x 23 cm); portrait, xii, [16] pp. contents and errata, 516 pp.; [2], 588 pp., with the "Round Robin" plate and the terminal plate of Johnson's handwriting. Boards rubbed and soiled, spines a trifle rubbed with some minor weakness at the head of the front board of the first volume, some slight foxing as usual, but an entirely uncut copy in what appear to be the boards of issue. As noted, the Bruce copy (his library, sold Edinburgh, 1900), with the later bookplate of Winston Henry Hagen.
A pleasing copy of the first and greatest of English biographies, perhaps the earliest with a modern sensibility. It is as telling an account of the inner life of Boswell as it is of Johnson, its ostensible subject. The book is quite rare uncut. Pottle 79; Grolier English 65; Rothschild 463; Tinker 338.
C
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