January 2021 Catalogue

4 Required Reading January 2021 Boswell’s Life Of Johnson , The First To Contain A Bibliography 2. BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. London, 1793. Three volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter straight-grain red morocco. $2000. Click for more info Second edition and first octavo edition, the last edition to be published in Boswell’s lifetime, with engraved frontispiece portrait of Johnson and two folding plates. “ The Life of Johnson was written on a scale practically unknown to biographers before Boswell…. Wherever English is spoken, it has become a veritable sacred book and has pervaded English life and thought” (Seccombe). This second edition of the Life of Johnson was revised and augmented and was the first to contain the bibliography of Johnson’s writings; it was also the last to published before Boswell’s death in 1795. With the leaf of “Additional Corrections” in Volume I, often missing. Contemporary owner signatures on title page, occasional marginal notations. Interior generally quite clean, marginal tears to leaves Oo3 and Oo4 in Volume I, not affecting text. Binding handsome.