Dictionary of the English Language - photo 1
Dictionary of the English Language - photo 2

Dictionary of the English Language

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$ 8 190
Auction dateClassic
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -04:00
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CHRISTIE'S
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USA, New York
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ID 813708
Lot 100 | Dictionary of the English Language
Dictionary of the English Language

Samuel Johnson, 1755

JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). A Dictionary of the English Language. London: Printed by W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, et al., 1755.



First edition of Johnson’s magnum opus, "a monument of industry and talent [and] the unrivalled authority for the English language" (Courtney and Smith p.54). Johnson’s achievement in compiling his great Dictionary was immediately recognized. In one of its earliest reviews, Adam Smith commended it, and Boswell called it a work of "superior excellence"; it was the only work Johnson called "my Book" (Letters I: 71). Not only did he provide lucid definitions and codify spelling but he provided c. 114,000 illustrative quotations, providing a compendium of excerpts from canonical works of English literature, meaning that even today it "may still be consulted for instruction as well as pleasure" (PMM). Noah Webster claimed that it was to language what Newton’s discoveries were to mathematics. Johnson's great literary labor, produced in the garret of his house in Gough Square, was published in 2,000 copies, and Fleeman estimated that over half may survive. The present copy has Todd's "b" setting of sheet 19D (press figure 1r-5) and the "a" setting of 24O (1v-2). Courtney & Smith, p. 54-55, Fleeman 55.4D/1a, Rothschild 1237, William B. Todd, "Note 242: Variants in Johnson's Dictionary, 1755", in The Book Collector, 14, Summer 1965, pp. 212-214.



Two volumes, folio (416 x 246 mm). Title page printed in red and black (one word in subtitle of vol.1 slightly obscured by small stain and tiny loss to paper, intermittent browning, a couple small marginal losses, one leaf repaired at gutter). Later half calf, red morocco spine labels stamped in gilt (spines a little scuffed with some wear to head of vol. 2, some rubbing at extremities). Slipcase. Provenance: Nanine Gilbert Hopkins (bookplate).

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