The History of Rasselas Prince of Abissinia

by Samuel Johnson

Overview

An Apologue about Happiness“Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.... Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world.” - Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas

Rasselas, son of the King of Abyssinia has everything he could possibly desire except his freedom. He is trapped and wants to know more about the outside world. Imlac has a plan to escape and Nekayah - Rasselas’s sister - decides to join the party of expatriates in their quest to seek happiness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681952451
Publisher:	Xist Publishing
Publication date:	09/28/2015
Series:	Xist Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	147
Lexile:	1250L (what's this?)
File size:	327 KB

About the Author

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Samuel Johnson: A Brief Chronology

A Note on the Text

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Appendix A: Other Writing by Samuel Johnson

1.From Father Jerome Lobo, A Voyage to Abyssinia (1735)

2.The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)

3.Rambler no. 4 (1750)

4.Rambler no. 204 (1752)

5.Rambler no. 205 (1752)

Appendix B: Contemporary Responses to Rasselas

1.From the Monthly Review (1759)

2.From Sir John Hawkins, The Life of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D. (1787)

3.From James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

4.From Ellis Cornelia Knight, Dinarbas (1790) 5.Elizabeth Pope Whately, The Second Part of the History of Rasselas (1835)

Appendix C: Orientalism in the Eighteenth Century

1.Joseph Addison, The Spectator no. 159 (1711)

2.From Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters (1763)

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