[Rarebooks] fa: BOSWELL, PIOZZI & HAWKINS on SAMUEL JOHNSON - 1786-1793

[ArCh]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, April 1 (no foolin’). Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y94j34gx

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI: Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life. London: Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand, MDCCLXXXVI [1786]. FIRST EDITION (i.e., no press figures on pp.189, 214 and 284). Small 8vo (18.5 cm) in early/period full calf with elaborate tooling on the spine, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; rebacked with the original spine laid down; viii, 306, [2] pp.; with the half-title and postscript. Rothschild 1549; ESTC T99797.
Reminiscences by Hester Lunch Thrale Piozzi (1741-1821) of her long, close and complicated relationship with Samuel Johnson. Includes anecdotes of many of Johnson’s contemporaries, including Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith, etc. A popular work, it went through four editions in the first year of publication. Binding with modest rubbing and wear; offsetting (browning) from the original binder’s glue to the edges of the first and last few leaves; mild toning to the edges of the text block, a few small spots and stains, else clean and sound, firmly bound. Bookplate of Birne Terry West. According to a printed slip loosely laid in by a former owner, this volume was part of the Paula Peyraud Collection of Samuel Johnson and Women Writers in Georgian Society sold by Bloomsbury Auctions several years ago.


HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI: Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. To which are Added Some Poems Never Before Printed. Published from the Original Mss. in her Possession. Dublin: Printed for Messrs. R. Moncrieffe, L. White [et al] (vol. II: Messrs. G. Burnet, R. Moncrieffe [et al]), 1788. First Dublin edition, published the same year as the first London edition. Two volumes bound in one; 8vo (21 cm), period full mottled calf, rebacked with the original spine laid down; xvi, 279 pp.; ix, [1], 306 pp. ESTC T75351.
Binding with modest rubbing and spotting, some bumping/wear to the corners; intermittent, mostly light damp-staining to the fore-edge of the text block, occasional small spots and touches of soiling; faint early (1795) inscription on front paste-down, later owner’s signature to title of vol. I; else generally quite clean and sound, firmly bound. The collected correspondence between Samuel Johnson and Hester Piozzi, most of which occurred when she was Hester Thrale. Her remarriage to the Italian music teacher Gabriel Mario Piozzi caused a rupture, never fully repaired, in her long, close, and complicated relationship with Johnson. The work concludes with several poems by Johnson, some in collaboration with Mrs. Piozzi.


SIR JOHN HAWKINS: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. London: Printed for J. Buckland, J. Rivington and Sons [et al], MDCCLXXXVII [1787]. FIRST EDITION; 8vo (22 cm) in full early/period tree calf with gilt tooling, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers; [2], 602, [16] pp. ESTC T110655.
The first full-length biography of Samuel Johnson, preceding Boswell’s opus by four years. John Hawkins (1719-1789) was an intimate of Johnson and the executor of his will, but while his account offered a host of previously unknown details of Johnson’s life, especially his early writing career, it was attacked by many critics and friends of Johnson for its often critical view of its subject as well as for its digressions into obscure and unrelated topics. Though complete in one volume, it bears the statement “end of the first volume” on the last text leaf, as it was intended to accompany Hawkins’ ten-volume Works of Samuel Johnson published the same year. (This seems to have somewhat confused the book’s binder, who has added a spine label reading “Volume 0.”) Modest rubbing and creasing to the spine, some bumping to the corners, repaired scuff on the rear board; light stain and small paper repair to top edge of title-page, intermittent light foxing to the leaves, else quite clean and fresh, firmly bound. A very good copy.


JAMES BOSWELL: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great-Britain, for near half a century, during which he flourished. In three volumes. The second edition, revised and augmented. London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, in the Poultry, MDCCXCIII [1793]. First  edition thus. Three volumes, large 8vo (22 cm) in full period tree calf, spines with gilt tooling and gilt-lettered morocco spine labels, rebacked with the original spines preserved; [2], xviii, *xxxviii [i.e., *xxxvii], [1], [xvii]-xxxix, [1], 603, [1] pp.; [2], 634 pp.; [2], 711, [1], 16 pp.; with an engraved portrait frontispiece and two folding facsimile plates, publisher’s catalogue at end of vol. III. Rothschild 463-465. ESTC T64482.
The first octavo edition of Boswell’s life of Johnson and the last edition published in Boswell’s lifetime, revised and augmented with much new material not found in the original two-volume quarto edition of 1791. Includes the “Additions to Dr. Johnson’s Life recollected and received after the second edition was printed” as well as the “Additional corrections” leaf (*c3) not always found.
Bindings with bumping and wear to the corners, rubbing to the spines; contents with intermittent scattered light foxing and offsetting, but generally very clean and fresh, firmly bound. Front (blank) endpapers with penciled citations by a previous owner; front paste-downs with the small labels of Dury, bookseller, stationer & binder of Southampton (“Secondhand Books bought or exchang’d”) and the armorial bookplates of Alexander Campbell, Esq. [of] Gatcomb House, with an early note in ink on the facing front-endpaper of vol. I: “Bought at Gatcomb Sale July, 1803. £1. 18 s.” Loosely laid in by a more recent owner is a 1988 invoice for the books from the antiquarian booksellers Pickering & Chatto of London. A very good copy indeed of “the most famous biography in any language [and] one of Western literature's most germinal achievements” (ODNB).