Johnson, Samuel; Boswell, James; Hill, George Birkbeck [editor]. Boswell's Life of Johnson (6 volume set); Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey into North Wales. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1887. [9466]
Six volumes in quarter green checked morocco, olive cloth boards, each 9 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches, bindings tight. Round private initial stamp on recto of frontispiece, vol. i.; occasional pencil markings in the text or end papers. Bindings show very little wear; there is a small repair to the top of the spine of vol. i.; small chip top of backstrip to vol. III.. Fourteen plates (some folding), collated and complete. Top page edges gilt.
xxvii., [1], 522 pp.; [iv], 480; [iv], 464; [iv], 446; [vi], 460; [xx], 324 pp. Text generally clean, some occasional light foxing. Very good. Hardcovers.
Boswell's Life of Johnson is considered by many to be the finest biography in the English language. Every bibliophile would enjoy having a set in their library.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the eminent English author and philosopher, "critic, biographer, essayist, poet, and lexicographer, regarded as one of the greatest figures of 18th-century life and letters...his career can be seen as a literary success story of the sickly boy from the Midlands who by talent, tenacity, and intelligence became the foremost literary figure and the most formidable conversationalist of his time. For future generations, Johnson was synonymous with the later 18th century in England. The disparity between his circumstances and achievement gives his life its especial interest...In 1763 Johnson met the 22-year-old James Boswell, who would go on to make him the subject of the best-known and most highly regarded biography in English. The first meeting with this libertine son of a Scottish laird and judge was not auspicious, but Johnson quickly came to appreciate the ingratiating and impulsive young man. Boswell kept detailed journals, published only in the 20th century, which provided the basis for his biography of Johnson and also form his own autobiography." - Britannica online.