Life of Samuel Johnson, The

London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1907. The Classic Life - Boswell's Johnson in an Elegant Bayntun-Rivière Binding
The Life of Samuel Johnson

BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. Newly edited with notes by Roger Ingpen. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1907.

Two quarto volumes (9 1/4 x 7 1/8 inches; 235 x 181 mm.). xxxii, 576; xvi, 577-1172 pp. Twelve inserted photogravure plates. Profusely illustrated throughout with portraits, views, and maps.

Handsomely bound ca. 1940 by Bayntun-Rivière in three-quarter brown morocco over tan cloth boards, covers ruled in gilt, spines with five raised bands, elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. Spines lightly and attractively mellowed. A fine, well-preserved set.

First published in 1791, Boswell's Life of Johnson remains one of the greatest biographies in the English language - remarkable for its immediacy, anecdotal richness, and the vivid reconstruction of the personality of Samuel Johnson. Boswell's method - built on diaries, conversations, and firsthand observation - effectively created the modern art of literary biography.

The 1907 Ingpen edition is among the more desirable early 20th-century scholarly printings, offering a carefully edited text enriched with notes and a generous illustrative program, including photogravures that lend the work a distinctly Edwardian bibliophilic appeal.

The present set is elevated considerably by its later binding by Bayntun-Rivière of Bath, one of the most respected English binderies of the 20th century, known for combining traditional craftsmanship with restrained elegance - an ideal treatment for a canonical literary text.