Books

4 vols., 8vo., Fourth Edition, on laid paper, with engraved portrait frontispiece (by Baker after Reynolds) and 2 large folding facsimiles, frontispiece and facsimiles lightly age-soiled, some mild offsetting to title, neat signatures (one contemporary) on front endpapers; attractively bound in contemporary half calf, marbled boards, neatly rebacked in calf to style, backs with flat bands ruled in gilt, second and fifth comparrtments with red leather labels lettered in gilt, all other compartments tooled in gilt, red sprinkled edges, a very good, bright, clean copy. 'With this edition began the practice�of enlarging the text with unpublished letters which had not been available to Boswell�A considerable number of new notes were also added, including some by Dr. Kearney' (Pottle, pp.171-2). The frontispiece is from the same plate as that used in the second and third editions, but the two facsimiles are dated 1 May 1804. An attractive set in sympathetically restored period binding. Pottle, 83.

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.