THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON Comprehending an Account of his Studies and Numerous Works, etc.

3 volumes. First Octavo Edition, revised and augmented by Boswell, with the corrections, cancels, and misprints. This copy also with the "Additions received after the Second Edition was printed" (pp. *i-*xxii), "A Chronological Catalogue of the Prose Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D" which is the first attempt at a Johnson bibliography (pp. *xxiii- *xxxi), and thirteen letters to Bennet Langton and one to the Earl of Bute. Most of this material was issued here for the first time and was not in the first edition quarto. Engraved portrait frontispiece, after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Also with the folding ‘Round Robin’ plate and a folding plate of with a facsimile of Dr. Johnson's handwriting. 8vo, handsomely bound to style, the bindings of three-quarter tan calf over marbled paper covered boards, the spines gilt decorated and gilt lettered within compartments separated by raised bands. portrait, title,xviii, [*i],*xvii-[*xxxii], xxxix Alphabetical Table of Contents, *xxxiii-*xxxvi, 603; 634; 711 pp. A fine and handsome copy, well preserved, the bindings in very pleasing condition with only very slight mellowing at the spine panels, tight and strong with virtually no wear, the text-blocks crisp, clean and unpressed.

Edizione: important printing of the first octavo edition in handsome binding. the first 8vo edition of what is perhaps the greatest biography ever written in the english language. the "chronological catalogue of the prose works of samuel johnson" appears in this edition for the first time. this set with the alphabetical table of contents before the text rather than at the end of volume 3, as is often the case and with the scarce leaves of corrections and additions following the contents.<br> celebrated for its intimacy and vividness, boswell's life of johnson "is one of the best books in the world. it is assuredly a great, very great work. 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." (macauley, in the edinburgh review, 1831). boswell learned a great deal about the art of biography from his subject, and brought to his task boundless curiosity, persistence, and zest.<br> boswell had been collecting material for this work since his first interview with johnson in 1763, and was confident that his kind of biography, "which gives not only a history of johnson's visible progress through the world, and of his publications, but a view of his mind in his letters and conversations, is the most perfect that can be conceived, and will be more of a life than any work that has ever yet appeared."