[Rarebooks] fa: SAMUEL JOHNSON - LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT ENGLISH POETS 1781 (Rockwell Kent-designed Bookplates)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, September 17. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y9yw4vr7

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Samuel Johnson: The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; with Observations on their Works. London: Printed for C. Bathurst, J. Buckland [et al], MDCCLXXXI [1781]. FIRST EDITION. Four volumes, tall 8vo (21.5 cm), in early/period calf, rebacked in later calf, gilt-lettered spine labels; vii, [1], 480 pp.; iii, [1], 471 pp.; iii, [1], 462 pp.; iii, [1], 505 pp.; engraved portrait frontispiece. ESTC T146734. 

Johnson's famous, and famously opinionated, series of brief critical biographies of fifty-two English poets of the 17th and 18th centuries. Originally appearing as the prefaces in Johnson's collected edition of the poets' works, issued in this same year, the lives are here gathered together for the first time. This was the last of Johnson's works to be published in his lifetime. "The best of these… biographies—e.g. Dryden, Pope, Cowley—are unsurpassed; Johnson's invincible prejudices badly injured some of the others, notably the life of Gray" (Kunitz & Haycraft).

All four volumes with the Rockwell Kent-designed bookplate of John Whiting Friel and Helen Otillie Friel. Commissioned in 1953 by Friel, a Philadelphia-based industry executive and book collector, the bookplate is significant enough to have inspired its own scholarly monograph (Ben Mazer, Rockwell Kent's Bookplate for John Whiting Friel. Boss Fine Books, 2002). Bindings with modest wear to the edges and corners, some crazing to the leather near the joints, front joint of vol. I cracked but secure; spotting to the frontispiece, contents mildly toned with occasional light browning and spotting, but generally quite clean and sound. An appealing set.