Fleeman, Bibliography of Johnson, 59.4R/6. Very Rare Complete. No copy in the UK or outside the USA. Of the thirteen physical copies (there are two duplicated entries) recorded by ESTC (five of which are at Harvard) only five copies are complete: Yale (ex Tinker), (a single copy at) Harvard (ex Metzdorf - Adam - Hyde), Bryn Mawr, New York Public Library, Historical Society of Pennsylvania and Free Library of Philadelphia. Most copies lack the frontispiece or are otherwise damaged. The last sale of a copy recorded on Rare Book Hub was at Henkels in Philadelphia in 1923.
The very rare first American edition of Samuel Johnson’s popular Rasselas. A rebellious and patriotic publication printed in “America” [i.e. Philadelphia] “For Every Purchaser.”
The Prince of Abissinia (or Rasselas as it has long been universally known - this is the first edition to use it on the title) was first published in London in 1759 and became Samuel Johnson’s most popular work appearing in over 500 editions and being translated into numerous languages. Boswell noted in his Life of Johnson: “I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having read it through” (I. p.342).
Chauncey Brewster Tinker first identified this American edition of Rasselas in 1924 (see “Rasselas in the New World”, Yale Review XIV (1924-5) p.95). Robert F. Metzdorf expanded on this in his bibliographical notes published in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America in 1953 (vol. 47, no. 4) where he stated that this edition was “quite scarce”, noting that, “only twelve copies can be located, and most of them lack the frontispiece engraving”.
Metzdorf goes on to discuss the unusual imprint on the title-page with the place of publication simply referred to as “America” rather than Philadelphia where the printer, Robert Bell, operated. As Fleeman noted this was the Irish-born radical bookseller and printer’s first publication. The suggestion is that the bold statement that the book was printed in America was a patriotic nod to the attempt to break the British dominance on trades that existed in the colonies. Bell was proudly advertising on the title-page of this book that - rather than importing an edition of Rasselas from England - the work had been printed in America by American workers. This attempt to break the flow of importation from England came to a head in the period surrounding the publication of this book:
“In Philadelphia, in 1768, there was great agitation to adopt the non-importation agreements of the two commercial centres to the north. A petition was sent to the King and to both house of Parliament in September, 1768, praying for the repeal of the Townshend Acts. When this appeal failed, the Philadelphians finally joined the other American merchant groups in adopting an anti-importation resolution on March 10, 1768. Schoolbooks were among the items specifically banned” (p.375).
Additionally, it is rather pleasing that Samuel Johnson actually saw a copy of this American edition. When William White, Bishop of Pennsylvania was in London in 1771 he mentioned to Johnson that an edition of Rasselas had been published in America. When White returned to America he sent a copy of the present American edition to Johnson who noted, “The impression is not magnificent, but it flatters an author, because the printer seems to have expected that it would be scattered among the people. The little book has been well received, and is translated into Italian, French, German and Dutch. **It has now one honour more, by an American edition”** (March 4th 1773).
On the verso of the title is printed the “Character of the History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Extracted from Dodsley’s View of Literature” which identifies Johnson as the author and was reprinted from The Annual Register, … of the Year 1759 (1760), pp. 477-9. A largely different and expanded “Character of Rasselas” was printed in the second American edition (Philadelphia, 1791) which was “directly indebted” (Fleeman) to the version in the Dublin edition of 1787. Appended to Rasselas is Johnson’s ‘The Voyage of Life’ (p. [189]-192), i.e. The Rambler, No. 102, a number that anthologised under this title in The Polite Instructor (1761) and The Moral Miscellany (1758; 2nd ed 1765). It is here printed in smaller type to fill the last four pages which would otherwise have been blank. It was not included in other editions Rasselas.
Provenance: Nereus Mendenhall, childish pencil signature on the front pastedown.; presumably Dr Nereus Mendenhall (1819-93), of North Carolina, educator, physician, civil engineer, and legislator. Illegible cil signature with date “1851” on the final page. Pencil note “Friends” the front pastedown and pencil initiials “WW” and “M” with a date “1857” and “Solace” and “Friendship” and a purchase note “1954 Irene D.” on the rear endleaves.
