JOHNSON'S PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS. Facsimile Notebooks.

Limited facsimile edition. 14 volumes. 12 volumes in publisher's original brown card covers with black titles to the upper panel. Volumes five and seven with digitally printed marbled paper covers and black titles to the upper panel. 13 volumes saddle stitched. Volume six with pages loosely laid in. 'A Note on the Facsimiles' loosely laid in. Housed in nine plastic zip lock bags within a blue faux leather slipcase, as issued. A near fine copy, the bindings firm, with a little rubbing to a cover corners, the contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the fine, structurally sound slipcase which has a few light marks.

Issued in an edition of 500 copies (unlabelled as such). Published to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the founding of Pembroke College, Oxford. The original manuscripts of Johnson's 'Prayers and Meditations' were given to Reverend George Strahan, which he published in 1785 (shortly after Johnson's death in 1784) with significant omissions from the original text. After Strahan's death in 1824 the manuscripts were passed to his daughter and in 1826 were given to Pembroke College. This facsimile edition reproduces the text of Samuel Johnson's notebooks in its entirety, omitting only blank pages, with the dates and numbers on the covers too difficult to copy.