James Boswell | The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, London, 1785, speckled calf gilt

James Boswell

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by James Boswell, Esq. London: Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, 1785

FIRST EDITION, 8vo (210 x 124mm.), half-title, title with printer's device, printed dedication to Edmond Malone from James Boswell, original tie, contemporary calf, flat spine gilt, green morocco label gilt, marbled endpapers, light scattered foxing, some ink rubbed, manuscript note in ink to page 385, corners slightly bumped

First edition of Boswell's famous travel journal, published the year after Johnson's death, which recounts a trip the friends took from Edinburgh, around the eastern and northeastern coasts of Scotland, and through the highlands and the Hebrides, in 1773. Johnson's own publication about their trip, his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, was published in 1775, and serves as a ruminatory foil to Boswell's typically anecdotal style. The Journal of their Scottish trip was a precursor to Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, his great homage to his friend, considered the greatest English language biography (see next lot).

PROVENANCE

"Rebecca Penyoton 1787", manuscript inscription on half title