The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Name: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
Author: Samuel Johnson

First published 1804 · Public Domain154 pagesPrinted by J. Belcher

Fiction History Reference Enlightenment Classics

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About This Book

Written in a single week in January 1759 by Samuel Johnson, reportedly to pay for his mother's funeral, The History of Rasselas became Johnson's most widely read prose work. Prince Rasselas escapes from the Happy Valley — an earthly paradise in Ethiopia — to explore the wider world in search of genuine happiness. Accompanied by his sister Nekayah and the philosopher Imlac, he encounters poets, hermits, and rulers, each offering a different theory of the good life, and each found wanting. The conclusion, famously titled "The Conclusion, in Which Nothing Is Concluded," encapsulates Johnson's view that human contentment is always incomplete. Published the same year as Voltaire's Candide under strikingly similar circumstances.

Excerpt

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow — attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.— Opening of The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

About the Author

Samuel Johnson

1709 – 1784

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was an English writer, critic, and lexicographer whose intellect and personality dominated the literary culture of his age. Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, to a bookseller father, he struggled with poverty and depression for much of his life. His monumental Dictionary of the English Language (1755), compiled almost single-handedly over nine years, set a new standard for lexicography. The philosophical tale Rasselas (1759), written in a single week to pay for his mother's funeral, became one of the most reprinted works of the century. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) established the model for modern literary biography. His conversational brilliance was immortalised by James Boswell in what many consider the greatest biography in English. A moralist, a wit, and a deeply compassionate man, Johnson shaped how the English-speaking world thinks about language, literature, and the examined life.

Publication Details

First Published	1804
Publisher	Printed by J. Belcher
Pages	154
Language	English
Genre	Fiction, History, Reference, Enlightenment
Copyright	Public Domain
Open Library	View editions
Collection	Munsey's Classic & Rare Books