The Life of Samuel Johnson.

BOSWELL, James.

Item Number: 129518

Bath: George Bayntun, 1925.

First edition of Bayntun’s profusely illustrated two-volume edition of the most celebrated biography in the English language. Quarto, bound in three quarter morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. With 576 illustrations, facsimiles and maps including 13 plates in photogravure. Newly edited with notes by Roger Ingpen. In fine condition. An exceptional example.

“Boswell excelled in insight into human nature and in ability to dramatize a situation… It was a crucial part of Boswell’s magic to give significance and vitality to the apparently trivial; it is this trait, together with his notable accuracy and unparalleled completeness of portraiture, that made him… ‘the Shakespeare of biographers” (Baugh et al., 1065-66). "One of Western literature's most germinal achievements: unprecedented in its time in its depth of research and its extensive use of private correspondence and recorded conversation..." (Gordon Turnbull, Oxford DNB).