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A bright set of The Life of Samuel Johnson by Boswell, edited by John Wilson Croker. 5 Volumes, complete. With a Hedges & Smith bookseller's label on the front board of volume 1. On Croker"s edition of Boswell"s Life of Johnson, it is commented that, "In 1831 Croker published a new edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson including the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, which was vindictively attacked by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review, but which remained the best edition until.the work of George Birkbeck Hill" and that his research has been invaluable to later historians. (DNB) Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709 1784, was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative. Samuel Johnson is probably most famous for his dictionary. James Boswell, 1740 1795, was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for his biography of Samuel Johnson. His name has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer. John Wilson Croker, 1780 1857, was a British statesman and author. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1800. Immediately afterwards he entered Lincoln's Inn, and in 1802 he was called to the Irish bar. His interest in the French Revolution led him to collect a large number of valuable documents on the subject, now in the British Museum. In 1809 Croker was appointed as secretary to the Admiralty. Many of his political speeches were published in pamphlet form. He was for many years one of the leading contributors on literary and historical subjects to the Quarterly Review, with which he had been associated from its foundation. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography comments that, "He had a wide appreciation of all varieties of literature and art, which made him a valuable intermediary between the politicians and the public, and he was an able writer, lucid, fluent, and always well informed." In the original publisher's cloth binding. There is wear to the extremities, including bumping and discolouration to the boards. The spine labels have some small sections missing, as shown above. The inner hinges of volumes 1, 4 and 5 are strained. Internally firmly bound. Pages are generally bright with occasional spotting. There are institutional labels on the front pastedown, with institutional ink stamps to the verso of the title page, and the final page of text, in each volume. Very Good. Seller Inventory # SET13-B-5
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