Books

London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly 1791 and 1793. "The Life": first edition. Two Volumes. 4to (272x210mm). pp. xii, [16], 516: [2], 588 [i.e. 586]; [2], 1-42. In volume I, duplicates of pp153-56 and pp. 157-60 are bound between pp146-47 and pp150-51 respectively but it is complete. The scarce "Corrections and Additions" are bound in at the end of volume II. Engraved frontispiece portrait by J. Heath from Reynolds's portrait. Two plates with facsimiles of Johnson's handwriting in volume II (between pp92-3 and after final page). "give" is correctly spelt at line 10 of p135 of volume I but other misprints usually attributed to the first issue are uncorrected so this is a mixed first and second issue. However, the better (i.e. Pottle's) view is that the misprints or corrections simply reflect the states for individual sheets and one cannot, from these, assert an issue priority for any copy as a whole. The folding map of Scotland from the Tour of the Hebrides has…

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.