Books and Manuscripts

London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, 1791. In two volumes. First edition, first state (with "gve" in line 10 on p. 135 in first volume; all cancels present; text uncorrected in second volume, per Pottle). 4to. xii, (xvi), 516; (ii), 588 pp. Illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait of Johnson by J(ames). Heath after Sir Joshua Reynolds, in first volume, and two engraved plates of facsimiles by H. Shepard, in second volume. Speckled diced russia, stamped in gilt, gilt monogram of William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale on front and rear boards of each volume, red morocco spine labels, sometime expertly restored; armorial book-plate of sportsman and collector Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale on front paste-down of each volume; scattered light foxing to text; light foxing and small dampstaining to frontispiece. In brown cloth slip case. Pottle 79; Courtney & Nichol Smith, pp. 172-3; Grolier, 100 English, 65

A fine first edition of Boswell's landmark biography of Samuel Johnson, one of the great achievements of English letters. "So successful was it that by August twenty-second, 1200 out of the edition of 1700 copies were disposed of, and the whole edition was exhausted before the end of the year..." (Grolier, p. 151).

William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1757-1844) was an English Tory politician, builder of Lowther Castle in Cumbria (one of the largest in England), coal baron, and patron of the arts, including William Wordsworth. He was the great-grandfather of Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale (1857-1944), legendary sportsman, noted horseman, boxer, and automobile enthusiast.