LETTERS OF DR. JOHNSON
��[The following letters have been brought to my notice since the publication of my Letters of Samuel Johnson. Most of them, I believe, are now printed for the first time.]
To [SAMUEL RICHARDSON 'I. DEAR SIR, toss-]
I have been waiting on you every day and have not done uV I hear you take subscriptions for your two subsequent volumes.
��1 From the original in the posses sion of Messrs. J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London.
That this letter was written to Richardson, and in the latter half of 1753, I infer from the following con siderations :
In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1 7S3, P- 543, in the list of books pub lished in November is ' The History of Sir Charles Grandison, 4 vols. in 8vo, boards, 17^. ; I2mo, icw. 6^.' Vol. v. 8vo and vols. v. and vi. I2mo are in the list for December, p. 593. Vol. vi. 8vo and vol. vii. I2mo are in the list for March, 1754, p. 144. The two editions were brought out simultaneously. In my copy of the octavo edition ' second edition ' is added to the title-page of vol. vi ; in the copy in the British Museum it appears also in vol. i. The book
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��seems to have been published earlier than November. Mrs. Carter wrote on Sept. 21 : ' Mr. Richardson has been so good as to send me four volumes of his most charming work.' Carter and Talbot Letters, ii. 141. It is not improbable, however, that he sent her a copy before publication. The ' two subsequent volumes ' mentioned by Johnson were, no doubt, the concluding volumes oi. Sir Charles Grandison. His next letter shows, however, that it was the edition in seven volumes which he had received. The last three volumes of the edition in I2mo contain the same matter as the last two volumes of the edition in 8vo.
Lord Corke, who 'left his name,' is mentioned in the next letter as having seen Johnson or communi cated with him. f 2 I beg
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