The Idler. JOHNSON (Samuel).

By the Author of the Rambler. The Third Edition. with Additional Essays.

Two volumes. 12mo. [177 x 100 x 50 mm]. [2]ff, 294pp; [2]ff, 330pp. Bound in contemporary polished calf, the spines divided into six panels with raised bands flanked by gilt double fillets, lettered in the second on a red goatskin label, numbered directly in the third, the edges of the boards tooled with a blind roll, plain endleaves and edges. (Upper headcap on vol.2 chipped).
London: printed for T. Davies; J. Newbery, and T. Payne, 1767.

A very good copy, with the contemporary armorial bookplate of Robert Wilmot.

The original 104 numbers of The Idler essays were published each Saturday from 15 April 1758 to 5 April 1760 in Universal Chronicle. 12 of the essays were written by authors other than Johnson: three by Sir Joshua Reynolds, three by Thomas Warton, one each by Bennet Langton, Bonnell Thornton and William Emerson, with the authorship of three unknown. In the first collected edition of 1761 Johnson suppressed essay number 22. In this third edition there are three additional essays by Johnson - "An Essay on Epitaphs", "A Dissertation on the Epistles written by Pope" and "The Bravery of the English Common Soldiers". A fourth edition was published in 1783. 40 years ago Maggs was pricing a comparable copy at £175 (catalogue 1038, item 75).

Stock no. ebc8287