8vo. viii, 184pp. With a half-title, an additional engraved title page, and a further three engraved plates by Richard Westall. Contemporary green straight-grain morocco, richly tooled in gilt and blind. Lightly rubbed and marked, spine darkened and sunned. Bookplate of Robert Williams to FEP, inked gift inscription to verso of FFEP: 'Robert Williams, the gift of his affectionate cousin and sincere friend, C. M. Williams, August 1823', occasional light spotting, particularly to plates.

An attractively bound copy of Samuel Johnson's didactic romance, first published in 1759. The narrative concerns Imlac, a philosopher acquaintance of Rasselas, the eponymous Prince of Abissinia, who outlines Johnson's celebrated definition of the business of a poet: 'to examine not the individual but the species...he does not number to streaks of a tulip'. The apologue was originally published in the same year as Voltaire's Candide, bearing a similarity that Johnson himself commented on in later years. The plates were designed by Queen Victoria's drawing-master, and eminent Romantic portrait artist, Richard Westall (1765-1836).