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Author: Johnson, Samuel
Title: 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. To Which Are Prefixed, a History of the Language, and an English Grammar
Place Published: London
Publisher:Printed by W. Strahan, for J. & P. Knapton, et al.
Date Published: 1755
Description:

2 volumes. Text in two columns. (Folio) 41.5x25 cm (16 ½x10") period full brown calf, spine tooled in gilt with coronets, thistles, and foliate ornamentation. Skillfully rebacked with original spine leather laid down. Housed in two custom morocco-backed cloth boxes. First Edition.

First edition of Johnson's Dictionary, possibly the most important book in the history of English. "Dr. Johnson performed with his Dictionary the most amazing, enduring and endearing one-man feat in the field of lexicography...It is the dictionary itself which justifies Noah Webster's statement that 'Johnson's writings had, in philology, the effect which Newton's discoveries had in mathematics'. Johnson introduced into English lexicography principles which had already been accepted in Europe but were quite novel in mid-eighteenth-century England. He codified the spelling of English words; he gave full and lucid definitions of their meanings (often entertainingly coloured by his High Church and Tory propensities); and he adduced extensive and apt illustrations from a wide range of authoritative writers...but despite the progress made during the past two centuries in historical and comparative philology, Johnson's book may still be consulted for instruction as well as pleasure" (Printing and the Mind of Man). Indeed, the labor and genius of Johnson's production still awes us today. Over a period of eight years, "with no real library at hand, Johnson wrote the definitions of over 40,000 words...illustrating the senses in which these words could be used by including about 114,000 quotations drawn from English writing in every field of learning during the two centuries from the middle of the Elizabethan period down to his own time" (W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson, NY 1977, p.247). The first edition was published in April 1755 in a printing of 2000 copies. This copy belonged to and was probably bound for John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore (1732-1809), with his engraved bookplates and spines decorated with coronets and thistles. The Earl of Dunmore was governor of the American colonies of New York and Virginia from 1770 to 1776. PMM 201; Rothschild 1237.

Some scuffing to leather, ownership inscriptions on upper pastedowns; title pages in each volume and several other leaves skillfully repaired, a few annotations in pencil and ink; very good.