Boswell’s The Life Of Samuel Johnson 1807

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By Sarasota Estate Auction

Aug 5, 2023

Set Reminder 2023-08-05 11:00:00 2023-08-05 11:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Day 1- Fine Art, Rare Books, Silver & Pottery https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/sarasota-estate/day-1--fine-art-rare-books-silver-pottery-13292
Featuring a Lifetime Collection of Early American Pottery, a Fantastic Georg Jensen Sterling Tea Set - 23 OZT, Important Books and Ephemera, and Exquisite Estate Jewelry. Also including art from artists including Roy Lichtenstein, Camille Pissarro, Karel Appel, Victor Vasarely, and many more. Sarasota Estate Auction sarasotaestateauction@gmail.com

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• Lot Description
  Boswell’s The Life Of Samuel Johnson 1807. This is a complete three-volume set of Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson from 1807. The books were written by James Boswell and titled “The Life Of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprehending an Account Of His Studies, And Numerous Works, In Chronological Order; A Series Of His Epistolary Correspondence And Conversations With Many Eminent Persons And Various Original Pieces Of His Composition, Never Before Published: The Whole Exhibiting A View Of Literature And Literary Men In Great Britain, For Near Half A Century During Which He Flourished.” The first English edition was published in 1791, and this is the first American edition that was ever published, based on the Fifth London Edition which had been printed earlier in the year, and the three volumes were published in Boston, by W. Andrews And L. Blake. James Boswell (1740 - 1795) was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary, the English writer Samuel Johnson, which is often said to be the greatest biography written in the English language. Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) was an English writer, poet, playwright, essayist, critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer, and The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history”. Often called Dr. Johnson, he wrote a Dictionary of the English Language that took seven years to complete and had far-reaching effects on modern English. It replaced older outdated dictionaries which weren’t up to snuff anymore, and Johnson’s Dictionary was among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. But Johnson was more than a well-known writer and scholar. He loved biography and changed the course of biography for the modern world, and his “Lives of the Poets” and the prefaces and commentary on Shakespeare in that book are among the most brilliant documents in the whole range of English criticism. It only took him three years to write that book (from 1779 to 1781), and Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson was selected by Johnson biographer Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature”. The books were published in three volumes, and they all have gilt titles on red labels and horizontal gilt bands on the spines, the brown boards appear to be original, blank endpapers, the title pages, no illustrations except for the frontis portrait of Samuel Johnson at the beginning of the first volume, and all the edges have a teal-colored topstain, which is not a bad thing like a dampstain or watermark - a topstain is a color chosen by the printer instead of gilt to attract a reader to buy the book, while a dampstain is a sign that water leaked onto the pages at one point and damaged the book. They also have year dates as printer’s marginalia in the top corner of each page in the three volumes. The first volume has four pages dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous artist, then a three-page Advertisement to the First Edition, a three-page advertisement to the Second Edition, a two-page Advertisement to Third Edition signed by Edmund Malone (“Edm. Malone”), a one-page Advertisement to the Fourth Edition initialed by Edmund Malone (“E.M.”) and a one-page Advertisement to the Fifth Edition was also initialed by Edmund Malone (“E.M.”), and that ad says “In this fifth edition some errors of the press, which had crept into the text and notes, in consequence of repeated impressions, have been corrected …”, followed by a six-page Chronological Catalogue of the Prose Works of Samual Johnson, LL.D., then a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, followed by the text, for a total of 500 pages in the first volume. The second volume has 512 pages of text (from the title page to the end), and the third volume has 500 pages of text, followed by an Index, for a total of 543 pages, and we couldn’t find the Round Robin letter related to Oliver Goldsmith in the second volume, although there are references to Goldsmith on pages 89 through 99 in Volume II, and we couldn’t find the handwriting sample of Dr. Johnson in the third volume - it doesn’t seem like they were ever there. That’s why we believe this is a first American edition, second printing. (The first American edition has a foldout facsimile of the Round Robin letter addressed to Samuel Johnson referencing the Epitaph for the Monument of Dr. Goldsmith, as well as a sample of Samuel Johnson’s handwriting, and those two facsimiles are missing here, so we believe this is a first American edition, second printing of the title.) The books are 8vo. and measure 8 7/8 x 5 1/2 in. wide apiece, the bindings are tight and the pages are pretty clean, with offset here and there, light rubbing along the edges of the spines and at the crowns, modest wear on the crown in Volume III, the tips are strong, with just light wear at the tips, there is rubbing on some of the gilt on the spines and a few scrapes on the boards, brown stains along the edges of the blank endpapers - we believe that is from glue in the binding process for those pages - and occasional brown spots. There is light soiling on some of the teal topstains, a couple of half-inch tears and some small chips in the margins, but they don’t affect the text at all, a hole in the margin on one page in Volume I and a 1/8 inch hole near the spine on the front cover of Volume II; a tissue guard was removed after the frontis portrait of Samuel Johnson in the first volume, and we don’t think there were tissue guards for the other two volumes because there were no frontispieces in those volumes. There are also some “waves” on a few pages in each volume - we don’t know what else to call them - they’re not bumps or folds or creases, but were made in the printing process - we checked with a bookbinder who told us that when paper is wet and dries out in the printing process, the “waves” occur naturally and are not errors in the book or mistakes made by people, but just part of the printing process - and he told us we don’t really have to mention that in the description, but we felt you should know, so you don’t go “ahha, there’s a mistake or apology in the book you didn’t mention.” They are normal things that happen in the wetting and drying process and should not put you off - they occur naturally, and we just wanted you to know. One set is being offered online for $750, yet it has detached boards, dampstains throughout the first volume, foxing and so on, and this is a much better set than that one, the first English edition published in 1791 goes for four to five figures, and overall this is a pleasing set of the first American edition, second printing of Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. #2660
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