Samuel Johnson, 1755

JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). A Dictionary of the English Language. London: Printed by W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, et al., 1755.

First edition of Johnson’s magnum opus, "a monument of industry and talent [and] the unrivalled authority for the English language" (Courtney and Smith p.54). Johnson’s achievement in compiling his great Dictionary was immediately recognized. In one of its earliest reviews, Adam Smith commended it, and Boswell called it a work of "superior excellence"; it was the only work Johnson called "my Book" (Letters I: 71). Not only did he provide lucid definitions and codify spelling but he provided c. 114,000 illustrative quotations, providing a compendium of excerpts from canonical works of English literature, meaning that even today it "may still be consulted for instruction as well as pleasure" (PMM). Noah Webster claimed that it was to language what Newton’s discoveries were to mathematics. Johnson's great literary labor, produced in the garret of his house in Gough Square, was published in 2,000 copies, and Fleeman estimated that over half may survive. The present copy has variant settings for sheets 19D (press figure 7 and catchword ‘It’) and 24O (press figure 2 and catchword ‘So’ngstress’). Courtney & Smith, p. 54-55, Fleeman 55.4D/1a, Rothschild 1237, William B. Todd, "Note 242: Variants in Johnson's Dictionary, 1755", in The Book Collector, 14, Summer 1965, pp. 212-214.

Two volumes, folio (415 x 250mm). Titles in red and black, woodcut tail-pieces (occasional light spotting and toning, one leaf with repaired marginal tear, a couple short marginal tears elsewhere). Contemporary mottled calf (rebacked, worn, front cover of volume one detached). Provenance: early notes to front endpapers – John Burns (ownership inscription dated 21 June 1939) – Donald W. Thibeault (gift form).