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"THE MOST AMAZING, ENDURING AND ENDEARING ONE-MAN FEAT"

JOHNSON, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language. London, 1755. Two volumes.

First edition of the first great dictionary of the English language, Johnson's "audacious attempt to tame his unruly native tongue… combining huge erudition with a steely wit and remarkable clarity of thought" (Hitchings, 3)—"Johnson's writings had, in philology, the effect which Newton's discoveries had in mathematics." $27,500.

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"THAT DIALOGUE OF MIND, HEART AND VOICE"

BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. London, 1791. Two volumes.

First edition, first state of "the most famous biography in any language, one of Western literature's most germinal achievements." The copy of politician, traveler, and writer John Cam Hobhouse, the Baron Broughton, most famous for his long-running and very close friendship with Lord Byron, with his engraved armorial bookplate. $27,000.

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“THAT DIALOGUE OF MIND, HEART AND VOICE”

BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. London, 1791. Two volumes.

First edition, first state of "the most famous biography in any language, one of Western literature's most germinal achievements." Handsomely bound in full morocco-gilt by Zaehnsdorf in 1905. $17,500.

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"ASSUREDLY A GREAT, A VERY GREAT WORK"

(JOHNSON, Samuel) BOSWELL, James. Life of Johnson. Oxford: 1887. Six volumes bound in eleven.

First George Birkbeck Hill edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson and Johnson's travels, extra-illustrated with 1153 finely engraved portraits, views, maps and facsimiles (including many proofs on India paper), and facsimile of handwritten note by Hill tipped in. Handsomely bound in full morocco by Riviere & Son. $11,000.

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"THE MADNESS OF INDEPENDENCE HAS SPREAD": FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF SAMUEL JOHNSON’S CONTROVERSIAL POLITICAL TRACTS, 1776

JOHNSON, Samuel. Political Tracts. London, 1776.

First edition of Johnson's four anonymously published political tracts, together in one volume for the first time, False Alarm (1770), Falkland's Islands (1771), The Patriot (1774) and Taxation No Tyranny (1775), his provocative attack on American colonists and the First Continental Congress. $2500.

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“IN A MAN’S LETTERS, YOU KNOW, MADAM, HIS SOUL LIES NAKED”

PIOZZI, Hester Lynch, ed. Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson. London, 1788. Two volumes. First edition of Hester Thrale Piozzi’s significant selection of Dr. Johnson’s erudite and entertaining letters—“the first publication and canonization of a large body of his correspondence”—uncut in original boards. $2500.

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"THE GREATEST MASTERPIECE OF ENGLISH 18TH-CENTURY CRITICISM"

JOHNSON, Samuel. Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. London, 1783. Four volumes.

1783 edition of Johnson's celebrated Lives of the Poets—"the only edition of importance after the first. It is the only edition which Johnson revised, and the last he lived to see"—with engraved frontispiece portrait after Sir Joshua Reynolds, a splendid four-volumes in scarce contemporary polished calf. $1750.

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“THE GREATEST MASTERPIECE OF ENGLISH 18TH-CENTURY CRITICISM”

JOHNSON, Samuel. Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. London, 1781. Four volumes.

First London edition of Johnson’s celebrated Lives of the Poets, with engraved frontispiece portrait after Sir Joshua Reynolds, handsomely bound in contemporary calf-gilt. $1600.

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“THE GREATEST MASTERPIECE OF ENGLISH 18TH-CENTURY CRITICISM”

JOHNSON, Samuel. Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. London, 1781. Four volumes.

First London edition of Johnson’s celebrated Lives of the Poets, with engraved frontispiece portrait after Sir Joshua Reynolds, handsomely bound in contemporary calf. $1600.

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