Boswell, James (1740 - 1795)

The Life of Samuel Johnson [Three-volumes Complete]

Boston: W. Andrews and L. Blake, Greenough and Stebbins, printers, 1807. First American Edition, from the Fifth London Edition. Full Leather Hardcovers.

Full Title: 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

Full calf with red leather spine label with gilt sections and numerals on the spine. Edges stained and speckled light blue with 8vo; 9 by 5.5 inches; pp 500 / 512 / 543 with index; Frontispiece of Samuel Johnson in volume 1. Advertisements of first five volumes, and a six-page Chronological Catalogue of the Prose Works of Samuel Johnson precedes the text in volume one.  First American Edition, from the Fifth London Edition. This is the first edition of this work to contain an index.

The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Moderate shelf handling wear; minor bump to the lower text block of Volume 1 and 2. Some loss of sharpness of gilt on the spine. Lacking tissue guard before the frontispiece in vol 1. Small hole center front of partially through the front board near the spine of vol 3. There are no fold-out plates.

Very Good / No Dust Jacket As Issued. Item #17178

A complete set of Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson originally published in 1791.

James Boswell 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.

Ref: Shaw & Shoemaker Am Biblio 12184

Price: $595.00