Bonhams 1793 : JOHNSON (SAMUEL, contributor) The Preceptor: Containing a General Course of Education, 2 vol., FIRST EDITION, 1748

The Preceptor: Containing a General Course of Education. Wherein the First Principles of Polite Learning are Laid Down in a Way Most Suitable for Trying the Genius, and Advancing the Instruction of Youth, 2 vol., first edition, engraved frontispiece by Hayman after Grignion in each volume, titles printed in red and black, 32 (of 33) engraved plates and maps (mostly folding, the maps hand-coloured in outline), with the plate depicting the male nude removed (perhaps by the Archbishop, see note on bookplate below), without final advertisement leaf in volume 2, bookplate of Antoine-Éleonor-Léon Leclerc de Juigné (1728-1811, Archbishop of Paris during the Revolution), contemporary calf, joints cracking [Courtney, pp.21-2; Hazen, Prefaces, pp.171-9], 8vo, R. Dodsley, 1748

Sold for £350 inc. premium

Footnotes

First edition of Robert Dodsley's The Preceptor, a compilation of 'polite learning' for the use of the young, ranging from logic to law and architecture to geography, which was reprinted on many occasions, "even becoming a textbook in colonial American colleges" (ODNB). Samuel Johnson contributed the long Preface to volume one, and "The Vision of Theodore the Hermit of Teneriffe, found in his Cell" (volume 2, pp.516-26) which, according to Boswell, Johnson believed to be "the best thing he ever wrote".

Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts

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