The Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll. D. Including a Journal of His Tour to the Hebrides: by James Bowell, Esq. to Which Are Added, Anecdotes by Hawkins, Piozzi, Murphy, Tyers, Reynolds, Steevens, & C and Notes by Various Hands

E-252: John Murray. Very Good. 1835. Leather. Leather. Small 8vo. John Murray, London. 1835. 10 volumes. Xxiv, 325 pgs; viii, 344 pgs; ix, 323 pgs; xii, 343 pgs; viii, 341 pgs; viii, 342 pgs; viii, 381 pgs; xi, 431 pgs, xv, 335 pgs; xii, 376 pgs. Illustrated with a hand-colored engraved frontispiece and an additional hand-colored vignette title, all engraved by Edward Francis Finden (1791-1857). In addition there are nineteen hand-colored plates, (portraits and views) , a folding map of "The Tour through Scotland and the Hebrides. In 1773" (volume IV) , a folding facsimile "Round Robin" (volume VI) , and six folding facsimile letters. First Illustrated Edition, Croker's Second Edition. Bound in tree calf leather with gilt double-rule border on covers, spines decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments, with red maroon labels with gilt lettering and gilt board edges and turn-ins, all edges gilt, with some uncut pages and marbled endpapers (unsigned binding; looks like Bayntun). Full purple morocco, covers elaborately tooled in gilt in a geometric pattern. Boards have light wear present to the extremities of the boards. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. In Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality, in a biography to which we owe much of our knowledge of the man himself. Through a series of richly detailed anecdotes, Johnson emerges as a sociable figure, vigorously engaging and fencing with great contemporaries such as Garrick, Goldsmith, Burney and Burke, and of course with Boswell himself. Yet anxieties and obsessions also darkened Johnson's private hours, and Boswell's attentiveness to every facet of Johnson's character makes this biography as moving as it is entertaining. EB; 12mo 7" - 7½" tall .