TY - ABST T1 - The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale Y1 - 1759 A1 - Samuel Johnson (1709-84) KW - English author KW - Male author AB -

A critique of utopianism. Happy Valley has a supposedly perfect life for the children of an emperor but seems dull to Rasselas, and he explores the world finding problems with almost all activities. Eutopia is found neither in the Happy Valley nor in the outside world. A continuation that is sometimes called a utopia, e.g., by Glenn Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography with A Supplementary Listing of Works Influential in Utopian Thought (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978), 79, that I cannot make fit any reasonable definition of utopia is [Ellis Cornelia Knight], Dinarbas; A Tale: Being a Continuation of RASSELAS, Prince of Abissinia. London: Dilley, 1790. Rpt. ed. Ann Messenger. East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1993.

PB - R. and J. Dodsley CY - London N1 -

Rpt. as The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. London: Harrison and Company, 1787; and Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia: A Tale. London: Ptd. for Joseph Wennman, 1787. Rpt. as The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. Ed. Geoffrey Tillotson and Brian Jenkins. London: Oxford University Press, 1971, with “Textual Notes” (135-39) and “Explanatory Notes” (140-45). Rpt. under the original title in Samuel Johnson. Ed. Donald Greene (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1984), 335-418, with “Notes” (811-13). Rpt. as “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.” Rasselas and Other Tales. Ed. Gwin J. Kolb (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 3-176, with a discussion material related to the text in the editor’s “Introduction” (xxvi-lxxi), additional material in footnotes, and the editor’s “Appendix The Reception of Rasselas, 1759-1800” (251-58). Fourth ed. (1766) rpt. in Modern British Utopias 1700-1850. Ed. Gregory Claeys. 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1997), 3: 99-181. 

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The first page of the text gives the title as The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. A Tale, and the book has often been published under that title; as Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia: A Tale; and as The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. A Tale.

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DLC, L MoU-St

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