The History Of Rasselas Prince Of Abyssinia Scholars Choice Edition

Author : Samuel Johnson
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781547219919
Total Pages : 130 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (199 download)

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Download or read book Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia written by Samuel Johnson and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia originally titled The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale, though often abbreviated to Rasselas, is an apologue about happiness by Samuel Johnson. The book's original working title was "The Choice of Life". He wrote the piece in only one week to help pay the costs of his mother's funeral, intending to complete it on 22 January 1759 (the eve of his mother's death). The book was first published in April 1759 in England. Johnson is believed to have received a total of �75 for the copyright. The first American edition followed in 1768. The title page of this edition carried a quotation, inserted by the publisher Robert Bell, from La Rochefoucauld: "The labour or Exercise of the Body, freeth Man from the Pains of the Mind; and this constitutes the Happiness of the Poor". Johnson was influenced by the vogue for exotic locations. He had translated A Voyage to Abyssinia by Jer�nimo Lobo in 1735 and used it as the basis for a "philosophical romance". Ten years prior to writing Rasselas he published The Vanity of Human Wishes in which he describes the inevitable defeat of worldly ambition. Early readers considered Rasselas to be a work of philosophical and practical importance and critics often remark on the difficulty of classifying it as a novel. Johnson was a staunch opponent of slavery, revered by abolitionists, and Rasselas became a name adopted by emancipated slaves. Author Bio: Samuel Johnson(18 September 1709 - 13 December 1784) often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and is described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of perhaps the most famous biography in English literature, namely The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell. Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". This work brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the widely read tale The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.