Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed - photo 1
Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed - photo 2
Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed - photo 3
Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed - photo 4

Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed

Lot 86
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 119 700
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 813674
Lot 86 | Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed
Estimate value
$ 70 000 – 100 000
Life of Samuel Johnson, inscribed

James Boswell, 1791-93

BOSWELL, James (1740-1795). The Life of Samuel Johnson. London: Henry Baldwin, 1791. [Bound with:] The Principal Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr Boswell’s Life of Dr Johnson. London: Henry Baldwin, 1793.



First edition, an important presentation copy of the most celebrated biography in the English language; inscribed twice by Boswell to his fellow countryman: first on a flyleaf, “To The Right Reverend Dr John Douglas, Lord Bishop of Carlisle, &c, &c, from his Lordship’s obliged and faithful humble servant, The Author”; and again on the verso of the title page of The Principal Corrections and Additions, "To The Lord Bishop of Salisbury from his Lordship's obliged and faithful humble servant The Authour." Douglas, an Oxford-educated Scottish scholar and Anglican bishop, was made Bishop of Carlisle in 1787 and Bishop of Salisbury in 1791. He is perhaps best-known for exposing the Scottish literary forger William Lauder (d.1771), who had attempted to prove that Milton had plagiarized other poets in writing Paradise Lost. Douglas also aided Johnson and others in debunking the story of the “Cock Lane ghost,” a purported haunting that attracted public attention in 1762 near St Paul’s Cathedral (the ghost is mentioned by Boswell on page 212 of volume two, noting how Johnson “related, with much satisfaction, how he had assisted in detecting the cheat”). Douglas became the Bishop of Carlisle in 1787, and Boswell the Recorder of Carlisle in 1788—of this, Boswell would write:



“Of old, ere wise concord united this isle,

Our neighbours of Scotland were foes at Carlisle;

But now what a change have we here on the Border,

When Douglas is Bishop and Boswell Recorder!”



Association copies of Boswell's work are rare at auction; ABPC records only one other inscribed copy. The present copy is the second state, with "give" on page 135. Rothschild 463.



Two volumes, quarto (272 x 205mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece of Johnson by James Heath after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 2 engraved plates of facsimiles by H. Shepherd, and all seven cancels present (foxing and marginal stain to frontispiece and upper corner of vol.2 title page, some occasional spotting or soiling internally, closed tear to page 115 touching six words, marginal loss to page 237). Contemporary calf, all edges gilt (rebacked with original spines laid down, a little loss at head of spines, front hinge of volume 1 tender). Custom box (split along hinge). Provenance: John Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, 1721-1807 (authorial inscription) – Reverend Theodore Williams, d.1827 (supralibros; his sale, Stewart, Wheatley, and Adlard, 23 April 1827, lot 240) [sold to Dimsdale] – W.J. Birkbeck, Esq. (his sale, Sotheby’s, 31 July 1934, lot 278) [sold to Maggs] – Sotheby's New York, 15 December, 1998, lot 26.

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