Books

First Malone edition, 4 volumes, 8vo, pp. xxxi, [1], 452; [2], 490; [2], 475; [2], 514; engraved frontispiece portrait by Baker after Reynolds, folding engraved facsimile of Johnson's handwriting, folding engraved Round Robin plate; labels gone on all but the last volume, but generally a very good, sound copy in contemporary full calf. The second edition was something of a botched effort by Boswell and the result was a book "painfully at variance with his own standards of ordered arrangement," although much new important material was added. It was left to Malone to "shake together" Boswell's second, and the third "is now generally regarded as the definitive edition" (Pottle). Pottle 82.

James Boswell's 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' is regarded as one of the greatest biographies written in the English language. It provides an in-depth and vivid recounting of the life of Samuel Johnson, a writer and critic who was a towering figure in 18th-century British literature.