1811 The Life of Samuel Johnson 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

Description

Folding Plates, Rebound

Four hardbound volumes in blue cloth covered boards with gilt titles to the spine, two fold-outs and engraved frontispiece. Samuel Johnson (often referred to as Dr Johnson) (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784) was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's 'Life of Samuel Johnson'. James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (October 29, 1740 - May 19, 1795) was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) is regarded as an important stage in the development of the modern genre of biography; many have claimed it as the greatest biography written in English. While Boswell's personal acquaintance with his subject only began in 1763, when Johnson was in his 54th year, Boswell covered the entirety of Johnson's life by means of additional research. The most admired and best remembered portions of the book though are Boswell's first-hand accounts of Johnson from the last twenty-one years of the subject's life.