The Life of Samuel Johnson.

London: Robert Rivière and Son Ltd,, [1906]. A finely bound copy of the greatest biography in the English language, "one of Western literature's most germinal achievements" (ODNB). The immense task of compiling the thousands of notes Boswell had recorded on "the great man's talk, habits and opinions" was begun after Johnson's death in 1784. Made up of trifling incidents as well as the significant events in Johnson's life, the work sold 800 copies in the first two weeks after it was published in 1791 and remains a masterpiece of portraiture. "The Life of Johnson was no single book miraculously produced by an inexperienced author. It was the crowning achievement of an artist who for more than twenty-five years had been deliberately disciplining himself for such a task" (Pottle, p. xxi). Two volumes, octavo (174 x 110 mm). Finely bound by Bayntun-Rivière in mid-20th-century green calf, spine compartments lettered and decorated with central tool in gilt, covers bordered in gilt, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. Engraved portrait frontispieces of Boswell and Johnson. Spines faded: near-fine copies. Not in Pottle.