The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
By Samuel Johnson.




Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for  Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
This particular ebook is based on a transcription produced for  Project Gutenberg and on digital scans available at the  HathiTrust Digital Library.
The writing and artwork within are believed to be in the  U.S. public domain, and Standard Ebooks releases this ebook edition under the terms in the  CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the  Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.
Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at  standardebooks.org.


Introduction
Rasselas was written by Samuel Johnson in the year 1759, when his age was fifty. He had written his London in 1738; his Vanity of Human Wishes in 1740; his Rambler between March, 1750, and March, 1752. In 1755 his Dictionary had appeared, and Dublin, by giving him its honorary  LL.D., had enabled his friends to call him “Doctor” Johnson. His friends were many, and his honour among men was great. He owed them to his union of intellectual power with unflinching probity. But he had worked hard, battling against the wolf without, and the black dog within⁠—poverty and hypochondria. He was still poor, though his personal wants did not exceed a hundred pounds a year. His wife had been seven years dead, and he missed her sorely. His old mother, who lived to the age of ninety, died poor in January of this year, 1759. In her old age, Johnson had sought to help her from his earnings. At her death there were some little debts, and there were costs of burial. That he might earn enough to pay them he wrote Rasselas.
Rasselas was written in the evenings of one week, and sent to press while being written. Johnson earned by it a hundred pounds, with twenty-five pounds more for a second edition. It was published in March or April; Johnson never read it after it had been published until more than twenty years afterwards. Then, finding it in a chaise with Boswell, he took it up and read it eagerly.
This is one of Johnson’s letters to his mother, written after he knew that her last illness had come upon her. It is dated about ten days before her death. The “Miss” referred to in it was a faithful friend. “Miss” was his home name for an affectionate stepdaughter, Lucy Porter:⁠—

“Honoured Madam⁠—
“The account which Miss gives me of your health pierces my heart. God comfort and preserve you, and save you, for the sake of Jesus Christ.
“I would have Miss read to you from time to time the Passion of our Saviour; and sometimes the sentences in the Communion Service beginning⁠—‘Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’
“I have just