First edition of Johnson’s only novel, written in the evenings of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral. Its rapid execution is said to have been due to the fact that he had been pondering its chief topics all his life. It soon became his most popular work. Although now inevitably called ‘Rasselas’ after the name of the hero, that title was not used in the author’s lifetime except for the first American edition (1768).

Fleeman, I, 785-8; Courtney & Nichol Smith, p. 87; Chapman & Hazen, pp. 142-3; Rothschild 1242; Liebert 73.

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