[Rarebooks] fa: SAMUEL JOHNSON - WORKS 1787 - Interesting Association/Provenance: ExLib LORD ELDON

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th, 18th, & 19th-century titles, auctions ending Sunday, Sept. 23. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/8trnfxv

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. London: Printed for J. Buckland, J. Rivington and Sons [etc.], 1787. Two volumes only (of 11); tall 8vo (24 cm) in original publisher's pale blue boards with white parchment spines; 410, 446 pp.

Volumes 8 and 9 only, but each complete in itself. Vol. 8 consists of The Idler, Nos. 1-103. Vol. 9 contains a selection from The Adventurer nos. 34-138, as well as Philological Tracts (Plan of the English Dictionary; Proposals for Printing Shakespeare; Preface to the Preceptor; An Essay on Epitaphs; etc., etc.). Light soiling and wear to the boards, sunning/darkening to the spines with a couple of horizontal cracks to the paper; mild bumping and dust-soiling to the untrimmed edges of the text block, otherwise the contents are exceedingly bright and fresh, securely bound. A remarkably well-preserved sample of this set in its original state.

From the library at Encombe House, Dorset, the seat of John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (1751-1838); both volumes with his signature ("Eldon"), armorial bookplate and hand-lettered titles to the spines. Though Samuel Johnson was an old man by the time Scott was making a name for himself, the two men knew each other. On Johnson's death, the future Lord Eldon said, "He was a good man… He sent me a message on his death-bed, to request that I would make a point of attending public worship every Sunday, and that the place should be the Church of England" (Twiss, The Public and Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon, 1844). Like Johnson an arch-Tory, Lord Eldon was a close adviser to both George III and George IV, and one of the pre-eminent figures in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English politics, successively Solicitor General, Attorney General, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and, ultimately, Lord Chancellor, holding that title, with only a year's break, for twenty-six years.