[Literature] Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson...

London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, 1791. In two volumes. First edition, second issue (with corrected text on p. 135, line 10, reading "give"). 4to. xii, (xvi), 516; (ii), 588 pp. Illustrated with a stipple-engraved frontispiece portrait of Johnson, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, in first volume, and two engraved plates of facsimiles by H. Shepard, in second volume. Full contemporary speckled tan calf, morocco spine labels, stamped in gilt, rebacked; all edges trimmed; armorial book-plate of Henry Peirse of Bedall, in Yorkshire, on front paste-down of each volume; ownership signature of Rupert George on title-page of second volume; light scattered spotting to text; in slip case. Pottle 79; Courtney & Nichol Smith, pp. 172-3; Grolier, 100 English, 65

A fine first edition of Boswell's landmark biography of Samuel Johnson, one of the great achievements of English letters. "So successful was it that by August twenty-second, 1200 out of the edition of 1700 copies were disposed of, and the whole edition was exhausted before the end of the year..." (Grolier, p. 151).