FINELY BOUND SET OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON AND JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES

BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, Including A Journal of his Tour to the Hebrides. London: George Routledge and Sons, circa 1880. Five volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown calf gilt, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, marbled boards, endpapers and edges. $1300.

Illustrated edition of Boswell’s celebrated biography of Samuel Johnson and his Tour to the Hebrides, handsomely bound.

"Everyone with an interest in Johnson is very much in debt to Boswell not only for the years of devotion he invested in the study of Johnson's life, but for the uncanny skill with which he conveyed the quality of Johnson's personality and his effect on the people about him. If there had been no Boswell, Johnson would have been one of the most famous names in English literature; but that he has become a household name, known to millions who will never read a line of his writing, is due to the chance that brought Boswell into his company" (Wain, 229). Illustrated with frontispieces and engraved title pages and in-text woodcut engravings.

Spines evenly toned. Fine condition.