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Critical Examination of Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill’s “Johnsonian” Editions issued by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, A
London: Bliss, Sands & Co., 1898. Item #00873
Fitzgerald on Hill's Johnson
[JOHNSON, Samuel]. FITZGERALD, Percy. A Critical Examination of Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill’s “Johnsonian” Editions Issued by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. London: Bliss, Sands & Co., 1898.
The first edition of this celebrated instance of the pot calling the kettle black.
Quarto (10 1/8 x 7 1/2 inches; 258 x 191 mm.). [8], 86, [2, advertisements] pp.
Original gray printed wrappers. A fine copy.
A celebrated - and gleefully combative - intervention in late nineteenth-century Johnsonian scholarship. In this pamphlet-length monograph, Percy Fitzgerald launches a sustained attack on the editorial practices and scholarly assumptions of G. Birkbeck Hill, whose Clarendon Press editions of Samuel Johnson were widely regarded as authoritative. Fitzgerald’s critique, detailed and unapologetically sharp, questions Hill’s annotations, textual decisions, and critical judgments, turning the tools of scholarship into weapons of polemic.
Long remembered as a classic instance of the pot calling the kettle black, the book is nevertheless of genuine bibliographical and intellectual interest, illuminating the intensely personal and often contentious nature of Victorian literary editing. It also offers a vivid snapshot of how Johnson’s legacy was contested, defended, and reshaped at the height of professionalized English literary scholarship. Scarce in fine condition, especially in the original wrappers, this first edition remains a desirable adjunct to collections focused on Johnson, Boswell, and the history of literary criticism.
Price: $100.00