Commonplace book of James Boswell [manuscript], ca. 1755.

Commonplace book of James Boswell [manuscript], ca. 1755.

1 v. : coats of arms

A commonplace book with a few extracts from standard authors painstakingly copied in a few pages of the book, with a number of engraved Scottish coats of arms, engraved by Robert Mylne and evidently cut out of a heraldic book. Boswell's eight headings are "Death and Immortality," "Prodigies," "Travelling," "Persecution through Superstition," "Pastoral Life," "Grandeur, the great uncertainty of it," "Sleep," and "Sterling." Inside the front cover is written "Alexander Boswell 1798 This was my father's common place Book at a very early period of his life."

"The pen's excellencie" : treasures from the manuscript collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library / compiled and edited by Heather Wolfe. Seattle : Distributed by University of Washington Press, 2002, p. 158-159.

Original marbled boards, calf backstrip, rebacked with brown morocco (Folger 1952).

Included in Auchinleck Library Sale at Sotheby's, June 1893 (lot not specified) and catalogue of William Ridler, August 1893 (Catalogue 252, item 483).

Purchased by Henry Folger from Pearson, 1900.

Exhibited: "The Pen's Excellencie" : Treasures from the Manuscript Collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, curated by Heather Wolfe, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., February 6- June 8, 2002.

M.a.6

cs84