Lot Details
Lot 24
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], "first state" (though both states were in fact coterminous) i.e. with the erroneous reading "gve" on line 10 of page 135. Two volumes, old brown calf, all edges sprinkled red, cloth slipcases. 10 5/8 x 8 1/2 inches (27 x 21 cm); volume 1: xii, [16] pp. table of contents to both volumes bound into the first volume (sometimes found in the second), 516 pp.; portrait frontispiece by J. Heath after Joshua Reynolds. Volume II: title, x-xii pp. (as usual), 588 pp., with the "Round Robin" plate at p. 92 and the terminal plate of Johnson's handwriting. Light binding wear, some rubbing to joints, scattered foxing and toning, generally minor, the plates (as usual) more toned, bookplate of Paul Butler.
A pleasing set of the first and greatest of English biographies, a work with a distinct and modern sensibility. It is as telling an account of the inner life of Boswell as it is of Johnson, its ostensible subject. "Boswell's Life of Johnson remains the most famous biography in any language, one of Western literature's most germinal achievements: unprecedented in its time in its depth of research and its extensive use of private correspondence and recorded conversation, it sought to dramatize its subject in his authorial greatness and formidable social presence, and at the same time treat him with a profound sympathy and inhabit his inner life" (ODNB). Pottle 79; Grolier English 65; Rothschild 463; Tinker 338.
C Private Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman
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