Samuel Johnson, 1755

JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). 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. London: W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, T. and T. Longman, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, A. Millar, and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755.

First edition of “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 recognised. Adam Smith commended it in one of its earliest reviews, and Boswell called it a work of “superior excellence.” Not only did Johnson give lucid definitions and codify spelling but he offered 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. The present copy has Todd’s variant “a” setting of 19D (with press figures 1v-9 and 2v-7) and the “b” setting of 24O (with no press figure). Fleeman I, p. 410; Grolier/English 50; PMM 201; Rothschild 1237; Todd, “Variants in Johnson's Dictionary 1755,” The Book Collector, XIV (1965), pp. 212-214.

Two volumes, folio (408 x 257mm). Titles in red and black, woodcut tail-pieces (occasional light spotting and toning, repaired tear into text in 30U1). Contemporary speckled calf, spines gilt with morocco labels, marbled edges (joints neatly restored). Provenance: George Saltonstall Mumford (bookplate) – Christie’s, New York, 8 June 1990, lot 295.