Books

1785. London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly. 1785. 8vo. Contemporary calf, spine decorated in gilt and with red morocco lettering-piece; pp. vii, 524, [2, errata and advertisement for the Life], a little wear to binding, marginal offsetting from endpapers to initial and final two leaves; a very good copy with mid-century bookplate of William Binns Cowper, physician and collector. First edition, an early state with uncorrected mis-spelling on p. 121, however with the inication of second state with leaves E3 and E4 as cancels, M4 not cancelled. Complete with half-title and errata. 'Though the Life is a vaster and richer piece of work, no one will maintain that it displays Boswell's unique gift for biography better than the Tour. Indeed, most lovers of Boswell will agree that the Tour as a whole, is more consistently good than the Life; that is, that nowhere in the Life could one find so many consecutive first-class pages as those that compose this book' (Pottle). The…

James Boswell's account of his 1773 journey with Samuel Johnson through the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides, offering both travel insights and personal reflections.