Boswell, JamesBiblio.com
BOSWELL, JamesBiblio.com
The Life of Samuel Johnson
1791Best.-Nr. 195532London: printed by Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly 1791. One of Western literature's most germinal achievements" ODNB First edition first state uncut in the original boards of the most famous biography in any language. Boswell began the immense task of compiling the thousands of notes he had recorded on "the great man's talk habits and opinions" after Johnson's death in 1784. Made up of trifling incidents as well as the significant events in Johnson's life the work remains a masterpiece of portraiture. "The Life of Johnson was no single book miraculously produced by an inexperienced author. It was the crowning achievement of an artist who for more than twenty-five years had been deliberately disciplining himself for such a task" Pottle p. xxi. "Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators than Boswell is the first of biographers" Macaulay. This copy has all the usual cancels and misprints as called for by Pottle including the misprint "gve" for "give" on page 135 of the first volume. The misprint was corrected while the sheets were still going through the press and both states were available on publication day 16 May 1791. Of the 1750 copies printed 800 were sold in the first two weeks. 2 vols quarto. Portrait frontispiece engraved by James Heath after Sir Joshua Reynolds 2 engraved facsimile plates by H. Shepherd. Text printed on pale blue paper. Uncut in original blue paper boards rebacked with parchment. Housed in a custom black cloth folding case. 1791 ownership signature of "D. Miller" to title page; bookplates of American collectors William Harris Arnold 1854-1923 Beverly Chew 1850-1924 and loosely inserted Stanley J. Seeger 1930-2011 and Christopher Cone b. 1955. Boards lightly worn at extremities rear board of vol. I with faint offsetting from a title page of Chambers's Cyclopaedia inner hinges cracked but firm occasional foxing to contents. A very good copy. Courtney 172; Grolier English 54; Rothschild 463; Pottle 79; Tinker 338. hardcover
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