JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). The Vanity of Human Wishes: the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated . London: R. Dodsley and M. Cooper, 1749. 4 o (255 x 197 mm). Woodcut title vignette, head-piece and opening initial. Modern crimson morocco gilt by Riviere (skillfully rebacked), edges gilt. Provenance : Roderick Terry (bookplate) -- EVCH (monogram on bookplate) -- purchased from John Howell, San Francisco, 5 November 1969. FIRST EDITION of Johnson's satire on human expectations, composed in the autumn of 1748, two and a half years after he had started work on the Dictionary . The first seventy lines were written in Hampstead, when on a visit to his ailing wife Tetty, and he continued to write rapidly. He was forty, still hardly known to the public, and Juvenal's satire had a deeply personal as well as a universal relevance. Following the end of the war of the Austrian succession and the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Johnson's "imitation" was strongly directed against belligerency and the unnecessary sacrifice of human life; but he also makes suggestive use of military metaphor to convey the embattled situation of the individual trying to fend for himself or herself in society at large. On 25 November the poem was sufficiently finished for the copyright to be sold to Robert Dodsley for fifteen guineas. Whereas London had been published anonymously in 1738, this second Juvenalian satire was published at one shilling on 9 January 1749, carrying Johnson's name on the title-page. A revised version was included in volume IV of Dodsley's Collection of Poems (1755), and the work was also reissued with London in Two Satires (1759). Ashley II, p. 210; Courtney and Smith p. 22; Chapman and Hazen p. 131; Fleeman 49.1VW/1; Hayward 163; Tinker 1303.
JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784). The Vanity of Human Wishes: the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated . London: R. Dodsley and M. Cooper, 1749. 4 o (255 x 197 mm). Woodcut title vignette, head-piece and opening initial. Modern crimson morocco gilt by Riviere (skillfully rebacked), edges gilt. Provenance : Roderick Terry (bookplate) -- EVCH (monogram on bookplate) -- purchased from John Howell, San Francisco, 5 November 1969. FIRST EDITION of Johnson's satire on human expectations, composed in the autumn of 1748, two and a half years after he had started work on the Dictionary . The first seventy lines were written in Hampstead, when on a visit to his ailing wife Tetty, and he continued to write rapidly. He was forty, still hardly known to the public, and Juvenal's satire had a deeply personal as well as a universal relevance. Following the end of the war of the Austrian succession and the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Johnson's "imitation" was strongly directed against belligerency and the unnecessary sacrifice of human life; but he also makes suggestive use of military metaphor to convey the embattled situation of the individual trying to fend for himself or herself in society at large. On 25 November the poem was sufficiently finished for the copyright to be sold to Robert Dodsley for fifteen guineas. Whereas London had been published anonymously in 1738, this second Juvenalian satire was published at one shilling on 9 January 1749, carrying Johnson's name on the title-page. A revised version was included in volume IV of Dodsley's Collection of Poems (1755), and the work was also reissued with London in Two Satires (1759). Ashley II, p. 210; Courtney and Smith p. 22; Chapman and Hazen p. 131; Fleeman 49.1VW/1; Hayward 163; Tinker 1303.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
