FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF SAMUEL JOHNSON'S WORKS, INCLUDING THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH BIOGRAPHY OF HIM

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins. London: J. Buckland et al., 1787. Thirteen volumes. Octavo, contemporary full speckled brown calf rebacked, brown morocco spine labels. $2250.

First collected edition, including the first edition of the first full-length biography of Johnson, in handsome contemporary calf boards.

The editor of this first colleccted edition, Sir John Hawkins, was a longtime friend of Johnson and one of his executors; the publishers Thomas Cadell and William Strahan asked Hawkins to oversee this edition within hours of Johnson's death in 1784. His substantial Life of Samuel Johnson—Volume I of the present set—was the first full-length biography of Johnson, predating James Boswell's more famous biography by four years. Includes The Rambler, The Adventurer, The Idler, Rasselas, Lives of the Poets, Journey to the Hebrides, Debates in Parliament, sermons and miscellaneous pieces. With frontispiece portrait in Volume I. Issued as an 11-volume set, Volumes XII and XIII contain Debates in Parliament and were issued as complementary volumes by John Stockdale. Bookplates. Courtney & Smith, 161-62. Fleeman 87.3W/1, 87.3W/1.2/1a.

Interiors fairly clean with minimal occasinal light foxing.