The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia (Dover Books on Literature & Drama)

ISBN: 048644094X

Author: Johnson, Samuel

Condition: New

Simply written, funny, and compulsively readable, this fine little book has been heralded as one of the finest examples of English prose and offers a compelling glimpse of Samuel Johnsons moral views. Dashed out over the course of a single week to pay for his mothers funeral, Johnsons only novel was the outcome of a lifetimes thoughts and experiences.A philosophical romance tracing the pilgrimage of an African prince and his companions to Egypt, Rasselas ponders a number of subjects - romantic love, flights of imagination, the great discoveries of science, and speculations about the meaning of happiness - all of which, Johnson implies, encourage man with false hopes and unrealistic estimates of what life has to offer.Directed specifically against eighteenth-century optimism and, more generally, against all simple formulas for achieving happiness, Rasselas has often been compared with Voltaires Candide - which was published only a few weeks before Johnsons work. Both novels have deservedly attained the status of classics.