JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784) - photo 1
JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784) - photo 2

JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784)

Lot 105
13.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 7 560
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1105728
Lot 105 | JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784)
Estimate value
£ 6 000 – 8 000
JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784)

A Dictionary of the English Language. London: W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, et al. 1755.

The first edition of Johnson’s dictionary, a landmark achievement of English literature, ‘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). Johnson's great literary labour, produced in the garret of his house in Gough Square, was published in 2,000 copies, and Fleeman estimated that only about half may survive. The present copy has variant settings for sheets 19D (press figure 7 and catchword ‘It’) and 24O (press figure 2 and catchword ‘So’ngstress’). 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 (415 x 258mm). Titles in red and black, woodcut tail-pieces (vol. 1: short marginal repair to 11N2, 55mm tear to 12L2 just into bottom 2 lines of text but without loss; vol. 2: tiny, insignificant wormhole to final fifth of book; some occasional faint browning, otherwise a crisp, clean copy). Contemporary mottled calf, spines with raised bands in 7 compartments, red and black morocco gilt labels in 2nd and 3rd compartments, red edges (rebacked, front cover of vol. 1 detached, extremities rubbed, head- and tailcaps heavily rubbed with head of spine of vol. 2 chipped and with 35mm tear, joints cracking). Provenance: early notes to front endpapers – John Burns (ink ownership inscription on flyleaves dated 21 June 1939) – Donald W. Thibeault (gift form loosely inserted).

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