London: W. Strahan, 1755. First edition. Two large folio volumes (16 5/8 x 9 7/8 inches; 422 x 251 mm.). Unpaginated. Text in double columns. Title-pages printed in red and black. Decorative woodcut tail-pieces. Title-pages with light staining, first title-page (A1) with an early faded ink inscription at foot of page and small expert repairs to the fore and lower edge and top left-hand corner with no loss of text. Expertly repaired closed tear to left-hand margin with no loss of text. First twenty leaves of volume one has a crease to the lower corner, and the last three leaves (13B-14Z) have a stain on the top corner. The last leaf (14Z) has a small piece (2 1/4 x 1 inch) replaced in the outer margin with no loss of text and a small lower marginal repair. Marginal pencil notation on 11R2 recto. Small stains to top margins of 12R2 verso and 12T2 verso. Volume two with very small ink stain to fore-edge margins of 30Z-31C, ink stain and early ink notations to 16O verso, small piece torn away from lower corner of 19R2, small clean lower marginal tears to 24X and 29B2. The last few leaves slightly creased at lower corner, last leaf (31C2) with tiny repair to lower margin. The last leaf of the preface (C2 verso) has a seven line early ink inscription from Boswell's Life of Johnson "The only Aid Dr. Johnson received was a Paper containing twenty etymologies from a Person then unknown, whom he afterwards found to be DR. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester. Boswell's Life of Johnson. The Author was now only in his 46th year and lived almost thirty years after the Publication of this Great Work." Full contemporary dark brown calf, covers with double-rule blind borders, spines with six raised bands, decoratively tooled in blind in compartments, red and dark green morocco labels lettered in gilt, later endpapers, all edges sprinkled red. Expertly restored with the original spines laid down, head, tail and corners repaired.

First edition of “the most amazing, enduring and endearing one-man feat in the field of lexicography” (PMM). Samuel Johnson began his epic dictionary in 1747 and “the mammoth tome took Johnson nearly 9 years to complete, remarkably almost completely single-handedly, and is now considered as one of the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language” (Public Domain Review). For his version of the dictionary, Johnson drew on English literary classics, including quotations from Shakespeare, Lock, Milton, and many others. In some definitions, his personality shines through, for examples he “defines ‘lexicographer’ as ‘a harmless drudge’; he exemplifies ‘dull’ with the sentence, ‘to make dictionaries is dull work’” (Vassar). Johnson’s project forever impacted how modern dictionaries are constructed and used.

Courtney and Nichol Smith, pp. 54-55. Grolier, 100 English, 50. PMM 201. Rothschild 1237.