The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, Signed Harcourt Binding

Binding Details:  Signed custom binding by the Harcourt Bindery, Charlestown, Massachusetts bound in full morocco leather with a spine treatment of raised bands, gold gilt titling in ruled tiles, and gold gilt central motifs. There is double gold gilt ruling to the  boards, gilt dentilles, gilt ruled edges, hand-sewn silk endbands, marbled endpapers, and the top page edges are gold gilted. The Harcourt Bindery label appears on the bottom of the last free endpaper.

Book Details:  Originally published in 1791, this is the 1991 Alfred A. Knoph – Everyman’s Library edition of “The Life of Samuel Johnson. Christopher Hibbert in his summary of the book wrote “The most celebrated English biography is a group portrait in which an extraordinary man paints the picture of a dozen more. At the center of a brilliant circle which included Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Fanny Burney and even George III, Boswell captures the powerful, troubled, and witty figure of Samuel Johnson, who towers above them all. Yet this is also an intimate picture of domestic life, which mingles the greatest talkers of a talkative age with the hero's humbler friends in a picture which is, before all things, humane. As a young man about London, James Boswell was obsessed by literature, and, on a fateful day in 1763, he attached himself with unswerving tenacity to the dominant literary figure of his age—the splendidly rotund, articulate, and humane Dr. Samuel Johnson. What followed was the most famous of friendships between writers and the basis for the remarkable documentation contained in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, the greatest and most compelling of all biographies.”

Measures approximately 8” x 5” x 2.5” with 1,278 pages as well as an introduction by Claude Rawson, table of chapters, a select bibliography, and an index

 Condition Report: The binding is in FINE condition.  Internally, the book is very clean with no signs of previous ownership. Overall, this is a beautiful binding that houses one of great literary works of the eighteenth century.

A photograph of the binding appears in the photo section of the listing.