BOSWELL, James.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Life of Samuel Johnson, Ninth edition, in a handsome contemporary binding, of Boswell's widely celebrated biography, first published in 1791, "one of Western literature's most germinal achievements" (ODNB). The immense task of compiling the thousands of notes Boswell had recorded on "the great man's talk, habits and opinions" was begun after Johnson's death in 1784. Made up of trifling incidents as well as the significant events in Johnson's life, the work sold 800 copies in the first two weeks of publication and remains a masterpiece of portraiture. "The Life of Johnson was no single book miraculously produced by an inexperienced author. It was the crowning achievement of an artist who for more than twenty-five years had been deliberately disciplining himself for such a task" (Pottle, p. xxi).

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