[Rarebooks] FS: 7th Edition of Johnson's Monumental DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 1785

[Charles Agvent]

JOHNSON, Samuel. A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: IN WHICH THE 
WORDS ARE DEDUCED FROM THEIR ORIGINALS, AND ILLUSTRATED IN THEIR 
DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS BY EXAMPLES FROM THE BEST WRITERS. To Which Are 
Prefixed, A History of the Language, and an English Grammar. London: J. 
F. and C. Rivington, et al., 1785. Seventh Edition. The First Unabridged 
Single Folio Volume edition, here bound in two tall folio (11-1/4" x 
17-3/4") volumes, each with a title page, in contemporary tree calf 
leather neatly rebacked with the original gilt decorated spines with 
matching red morocco spine labels; with engraved portrait frontispiece 
of Johnson dated 1787. Printed immediately following Johnson's death in 
1784. SLATE contributor Adam Kirsch in a 2003 NPR broadcast said this 
about Johnson's DICTIONARY: "The modern dictionary's ideal reader is a 
Martian scientist: someone with no background knowledge who wants a 
unique definition for every word. Johnson's dictionary, on the other 
hand, implies a reader much like Johnson himself: a curious and 
intelligent English speaker who wants to gain a fuller sense of words he 
already knows. Johnson clearly recognizes the paradox of the 
dictionary-- you have to know most of what's in it in order to use it" 
("Slate's Culturebox: Johnson's 18th-Century English," DAY TO DAY, 24 
September 2003). Armorial bookplate and stamped family coat of arms of 
Alexander Peckover Doyle Penrose on the front pastedown of each volume 
along with the bookplate of defunct Upsala College which closed in 1995. 
The only other library marking is a small, unobtrusive ink stamp on the 
verso of the title page of the first volume. Attractive, clean, Near 
Fine. (#021157)        $2,500

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/021157/samuel-johnson/a-dictionary-of-the-english-language-in-which-the-words-are-deduced-from-their-originals-and

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