Boswell's Life of Johnson 4 vols, 1816 T Cadell & W Davis, 8th edition revised

Description: Boswell's Life of Johnson 4 vols, 1816 T Cadell & W Davis, 8th edition revised Boswell, James.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.London: Printed For T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1816. Eighth edition. Hardcover. Complete in four volumes. 8vo, frontispiece portrait, xxxvii, 481pp, 2 folding plates; Vol. II: 496pp; Vol. III: 483pp; Vol IV: 530pp. The engraved frontispiece portrait was commissioned by Boswell from James Heath (1757-1834), after a Reynolds painting begun in 1756. Reynolds' reaction to Heath's first try at the portrait was that it made Johnson appear too young and not thoughtful enough; this frontispiece is the second, somewhat older and wiser looking Johnson portrait engraved by W Fry Bound in leather with 5 raised bands with gilt decorationSlight wear to spine, edges & cornersSome foxing and browning to endpapers and title page and first and last few pages. Mainly slight foxing elsewhere.Vols 1 and 3 are more foxed at the folding plate and surrounding pagesSee photos for condition "An honourable and reverend friend speaking of the favourable reception of my volumes, even in the circles of fashion and elegance, said to me, 'you have made them all talk Johnson.'--Yes, I may add, I have Johnsonised the land; and I trust they will not only talk, but think, Johnson." -James Boswell "Were I to detail the books which I have consulted, and the inquiries which I have found it necessary to make by various channels, I should probably be thought ridiculously ostentatious." -James Boswell, Advertisement for The Life of Johnson, 1791. "The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers." -Thomas Babington Macaulay

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