James Cummins Bookseller

London: for R. and J. Dodsley ... and W. Johnston, 1759.

Price: $6,000.00

About the item

First edition, one of 1500 printed by William Strahan. viii, 159; viii, 165 pp. A2r of vol. II in first, uncorrected state; terminal blank M4 present. 1 vols. Small 8vo (5-3/4 x 3-3/4 inches). Olive levant gilt, a.e.g., by Birdsall. George Barr McCutcheon copy with his bookplate. Spines uniformly toned. Fine. Courtney & Smith, p. 87; Chapman & Hazen, p. 142; Fleeman I, 785-8; Rothschild 142; Tinker 1314.

Item #234811

"Hawkins and Boswell agree that Rasselas was written to help the dying Sarah Johnson and eventually to pay for her funeral ... Johnson told Reynolds he wrote the work in the evenings of a single week, which implies a commencement at least on Monday 15 January, the date on which he learned of his mother's illness and on which he first sent her money" (Fleeman).

Johnson's only novel, a moral fable that proved immediately popular and remains a delight; the English analogue of Voltaire's Candide. Here finely bound and with interesting provenance.