'It will make about two volumes like little Pompadour, that is about
one middling volume. The bargain which I made with Mr. Johnson was
seventy five pounds (or guineas) a volume, and twenty five pounds for
the second edition. I will sell this either at that price or for sixty[2],
the first edition of which he shall himself fix the number, and the
property then to revert to me, or for forty pounds, and I have the
profit that is retain half the copy. I shall have occasion for thirty
pounds on Monday night when I shall deliver the book which I must
entreat you upon such delivery to procure me. I would have it offered
to Mr. Johnson, but have no doubt of selling it, on some of the terms
mentioned.
[Footnote 2: 'Fifty-five pounds' written first and then scored over.]
'I will not print my name, but expect it to be known.
I am Dear Sir, Your most humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.
Jan. 20, 1759.
Get me the money if you can.'
This letter is of unusual interest, as it proves beyond all doubt that
_Rasselas_ was written some weeks before _Candide_ was published (see
_ante_, i. 342, n. a). Baretti, as I have shewn (i. 341, n. 3), says
that 'any other person with the degree of reputation Johnson then
possessed would have got £400 for the work, but he never understood
the art of making the most of his productions.' We see, however, by
this letter that Johnson did ask for a larger sum than the booksellers
allowed him. He received but one hundred pounds for the first edition,
but he had made a bargain for one hundred and fifty pounds or guineas.
Johnson, the bookseller, seems to have been but in a small way of
business as a publisher. I do not find in the _Gentleman's Magazine_
for 1758 any advertisement of books published by him, and only one in
1759 (P. 339). Cowper's publisher in 1778 was Joseph Johnson of St.
Paul's Churchyard. (Cowper's _Works_ by Southey, i. 285; see also
Nichols' _Literary Anecdotes_, iii. 461-464.)
By 'little Pompadour' Johnson, no doubt, means the second and cheaper
edition of _The History of the Marchioness de Pompadour_. The first
edition was published by Hooper in one volume, price five shillings
(_Gent. Mag_. for October 1758, p. 493). and the second in two volumes
for three shillings and sixpence (_Gent. Mag_. for November, 1758,
p. 543).
Johnson did not generally 'print his name.' He published anonymously his
translation of _Lobos Voyage to Abyssinia; London; The Life of Savage;
The Rambler_, and _The Idler_, both in separate numbers and when
collected in volumes; _Rasselas; The False Alarm; Falkland's Islands;
The Patriot;_, and _Taxation no Tyranny_; (when these four pamphlets
were collected in a volume he published them with the title of _Political
Tracts, by the Authour of the Rambler_). He gave his name in _The Vanity
of Human Wishes, Irene_, the _Dictionary_, his edition of _Shakespeare_,
the _Journey to the Western Islands_, and the _Lives of the Poets_.