"THESE ANTIPATRIOTIC PREJUDICES ARE THE ABORTIONS OF FOLLY IMPREGNATED BY FACTION": A GREAT RARITY, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF TAXATION NO TYRANNY, 1775, SAMUEL JOHNSON'S HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL RESPONSE TO THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS AND REBELLIOUS AMERICAN COLONIES, ONE OF ONLY 500 COPIES

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (JOHNSON, Samuel). Taxation No Tyranny; An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1775. Octavo, 20th-century half red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spine. $16,500.

First edition, exceedingly rare first issue, of Johnson's controversial if colorful attack on the revolutionary stirrings in Americans—who were once described by him as "a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging"—an incendiary work, published shortly before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, that led a Member of Parliament to call for Boston to be "destroyed like Carthage" and doubtless spurred the cause of the Revolution. Handsomely bound by Charles J. Sawyer.

Samuel Johnson, renowned for his Dictionary (1755)—"the most amazing, enduring and endearing one-man feat in the field of lexicography" (PMM)— made a far more controversial impact in this "most notorious pronunciamiento in support of George III's government, his anti-American pamphlet, Taxation No Tyranny" (Wain, 280-85). In Boswell's Life of Johnson, he points out that long prior to Taxation, Johnson had already "indulged most unfavorable sentiments of our fellow subjects in America. For, as early as 1769, I was told by Dr. John Campbell, that he had said of them, 'Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging… That this pamphlet was written at the desire of those who were then in power, I have no doubt; and, indeed, he owned to me, that it had been revised and curtailed by some of them. He told me, that they had struck out one passage, which was to this effect: 'That the Colonists could with no solidity argue from their not having been taxed while in their infancy, that they should not now be taxed. We do not put a calf into the plow; we wait till he is an ox.' He said, 'They struck it out either critically, as too ludicrous, or politically, as too exasperating. I care not which. It was their business." On publication, Johnson's Taxation immediately "aroused the most passionate protests… There were many, however, who agreed with Johnson… He was highly pleased not only by the commendations… but also the uproar it provoked amongst the rebels and their supporters. 'I think I have not been attacked enough for it,' he announced at a dinner party soon after the pamphlet had appeared. 'Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard, unless it rebounds.' Thereafter, whenever opportunity offered, he condemned American soi-disant patriots in the most vituperative terms… He was willing to love all mankind, he averred on a later occasion, 'except an American… Over dinner tables views similar to Johnson's were constantly expressed. Within a matter of weeks in 1775 over 140 addresses were sent to the King condemning the Americans' rebellion… One Member of Parliament, Charles Van, went so far as to declare in the House that Boston ought to be knocked about the ears of its inhabitants and destroyed like Carthage" (Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels, 22-3).

In Taxation, Johnson speaks with pronounced disdain of the First Continental Congress and "the sounds which the winds are wafting from the Western Continent. The Americans are telling one another… That they are entitled to Life, Liberty, and Property" (italics in original). He argues: "Americans have voluntarily resigned the power of voting to live in distant and separate governments, and what they have voluntarily quitted, they have no right to claim." Johnson especially "disliked the rebel colonists for their hatred of authority, their unseemly scramble for money, and especially their dependence on slaves… Likewise, many colonists saw in Johnson everything they disliked about the mother country—and yet they continued to read, and even admire, the work of this propagandist for King George III. George Washington's copy of Johnson's Dictionary survives, his signature prominent on the title page… Benjamin Franklin met Johnson in London in 1760… Members of the founding generation relied on Johnson when they wrote their most important works—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers… Since at least 1785, according to federal court records, American lawyers and legal scholars have been using it to unpack the meanings of our founders' most important documents… For example, when the court debated in 1998 whether the Constitution mandated that census-takers count every citizen, the justices turned to Johnson to determine what the framers had in mind when they wrote the word "enumerate"(Lynch, New York Times). While "Johnson's pitiless and violent hatred of the American Revolution… was strong and consistent" and his Taxation helped set a certain path toward Revolution (Hitchens, Atlantic), Johnson nevertheless continues to assist, however unwittingly, the course of American democracy. First edition, first issue: "page 2 has the press-figure 1" (ESTC T49891); page 90 with Fleeman press figure 1. "In March of 1775 Johnson paid William Strahan for printing 500 copies of this edition" (Adams, American Controversy 75-69a), and after making a number of textual changes, he ordered 1000 more copies from Strahan. With scarce half title. Adams, American Controversy 75-69a. Sabin 36303. ESTC T49891. Fleeman 75.3TT/1. Courtney & Smith, 125. Howes J149. See Sowerby 3103. Armorial bookplate of John Thoburn Williamson. Text with a handful of tiny, neatly inked early annotations, followed by a small paragraph of notes written around the Finis of the last page.

Text very fresh with virtually no foxing. Handsomely bound. An excellent copy.