The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Together with the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides... New Editions with Notes and Appendices [WITH:] Johnsoniana... Together with the Diary of Dr. Campbell and Extracts from That of Madame d'Arblay, Newly Collected and Edited... [AN AUTOGRAPH NOTE PENNED BY JOHNSON; LIMITED EDITION, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH 1000 PLATES]

London: George Bell and Sons, 1884. New Editions. Hardcover. Very good. 7/104. Five volumes bound in eighteen, quarto (27 by 18.5 cm). Publisher's engravings: 5 frontispieces; 5 titles; 44 throughout the text. Extended from five to eighteen volumes by the insertion of about 1000 plates, including proofs, and plates on India paper, many inlaid to size, engraved on steel and copper, and mezzotints by noted artists. Uniformly bound in full red crushed levant morocco. Double-ruled gilt borders on covers; gilt spines with raised bands; gilt turn-ins; top edge gilt, other edges uncut (as issued); green silk ribbon markers. Extremities and spines lightly rubbed, (truncated) with some chipping, a few joints cracking; front joint of volume 1 skillfully repaired. Occasional mild foxing, browning, and offsetting. A very good, clean set.

Limited edition of this celebrated biography, first published in 1791, here published with several additional supporting works. This special edition was published 104 numbered sets, signed (for the printer) "Charles Whittingham Co" at the limitation page of each of the five volumes, this being copy no. 7. Bound in at the front of the first volume of this extensively extra-illustrated set is an autograph note penned by Samuel Johnson: "In company with some women, a lady asked me what I thought of Platonic attachments betwixt ye sexes, Madam, said I, 'a man's a man and a woman's a woman, and there's an end on't.'" A long-time friend of Johnson's, the poet and historian Thomas Warton (1728–1790) has added the note: "On my asking Dr. Johnson for his autograph he wrote the above in my presence. T. Warton." Bound-in as a frontispiece in a later volume is an undated note penned by the philosopher Sir James Mackintosh of Kyllachy (1765-1832), in which he seeks to make a date with a friend (William Lipcott?) "to look a the Clarendon Mss."

The lawyer and diarist, James Boswell (1740-1795) is best known for this biography of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the English poet, essayist, critic, journalist, lexicographer and conversationalist who is regarded as one of the most outstanding figures of eighteenth-century life and letters.

Provenance: Bookplate of Walter Horton Schoellkopf. (Inventory #: 54799)