Books

First London octavo, third edition overall following the first of 1791 and the Dublin octavo of 1792; 3 volumes, pp. [2], xviii, [*i]-*xxxvi, [2],[xvii]-xxxix, [1], 603, [1]; [2], 634; [2], 711, [1]; frontispiece portrait, folding "Round Robin" plate, folding facsimile of Johnson's handwriting; contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, red leather labels on spines, black numbering pieces (that on vol. II a little chipped); in all a good, sound set, or better, unrestored; in a recent brown cloth slipcase. This copy has the extra leaf *c3 in volume one with "additional corrections" and all the misprints identified by Rothschild, with the exception that page 408 of volume three is printed incorrectly. Bookplates of Lord Rendelsham in each volume. "The text of the second edition . deserves a close study. Although we believe that the third represents the form in which Boswell would ultimately have arranged [the] supplementary material, we can never be sure of it, for this edition was the last actually published in his lifetime. There were also many pleasant and characteristic sentences introduced in this edition which naturally dropped out when the text was shaken together by Malone" Pottle 81. Rothschild 468.

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.