The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson

Rasselas compresses everything that puts Dr Johnson among the great lions of English literature and life into this text

Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 above his father's bookshop in Lichfield, England. He was a sickly child, scarred by smallpox, with facial and vocal tics, likely symptoms of Tourette Syndrome. But he proved a brilliant student, attending Oxford until a lack of funds forced his departure. (Numerous honorary degrees would later justify his famous sobriquet Dr. Johnson.) At twenty-five he married Elizabeth Tetty Potter, a well-off widow twenty-one years his senior. She funded a school Johnson started, but lost much of her wealth when the school failed. Wracked by guilt, Johnson walked to London and, living virtually on the street, began writing reviews, essays and news for magazines, notably The Idler and The Rambler. In 1744, he published his masterpiece, Life Of Savage, an innovative warts-and-all biography of his friend, writer Richard Savage. Johnson would write several more lives, culminating in his acclaimed three-volume Lives of The Poets. In 1746 a group of publishers asked Johnson to compile an authoritative English dictionary. He completed the massive undertaking in 1755, and A Dictionary of the English Language would set the standard for the next 150 years. Upon his death in 1784 he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Yet his fame only rose when, in 1791, his friend James Boswell published became the most famous life of them all: Life of Samuel Johnson.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780140431087
ISBN 10	014043108X
Title	The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
Author	Samuel Johnson
Series	English Library
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	1976-11-25
Number of pages	160
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.