The life of Samuel Johnson

Oxford: William Pickering, London; and Talboys and Wheeler, 1827. First Pickering edition, 4 volumes, 8vo, engraved portrait of Boswell after Joshua Reynolds, Round Robin plate and a facsimile of Johnson's handwriting; contemporary full blindstamped calf, gilt decorated spines, a.e.g.; light wear to the spines but on the whole very good and sound. CBEL II, 1214; Keynes, p. 54; Kelly 1826.2; Pottle 90: "This edition in four volumes large octavo is the most beautiful that has yet appeared. The editor was Francis Pearson Walesby (1798-1858) Fellow of Lincoln College and afterwards (1829-34) Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford who in the previous year had (truncated) edited the edition of Johnson's works in the Oxford English Classics, with which this edition of the Life is uniform … This is the first edition of the Life to include a portrait of Boswell as a frontispiece. (Inventory #: 53380)