About this title: 'What then is to be done? said Rasselas; the more we inquire, the less we can resolve.' Rasselas and his companions escape the pleasures of the 'happy valley' in order to make their 'choice of life'. By witnessing the misfortunes and miseries of others they may come to understand the nature of happiness, and value it more highly. Their travels ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780140431087ISBN:014043108X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Spine straight w/o creases, binding tight, no reader/remainder/library marks, covers/pgs flat w/sharp, mild age toning pg edge. 156 numbered pgs. Audience: General/trade. Photos or other information available by e-mail. Daily orders/e-mail responses. E-mail confirmation of shipment. Check our feedback. read more
Description: Good. Publishers Overstock. A Good copy with a Remainder Mark and wear to the covers and the extremities. Buy with confidence from an Independent Bookstore where the owners, a husband and wife team, have over 30 years of combined bookselling experience. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780199229970ISBN:019922997X
Description: New. Brand new. Johnson's adaptation of a popular oriental tale. This edition relates Rasselas to Johnson's life & thoughts in the context of the Seevn years War. Very nice copy. read more
"I was on the road this weekend and picked up a copy of the WSJ weekend edition. It had an article about Samuel Johnson's Rasselas. My second semester in graduate school, I took a Johnson seminar from O. M. "Skip" Brack, who eventually directed my PhD thesis. He believed that the world would be a better place if everyone read Rasselas at least once a year. I haven't followed that regime, but I'm inclined to agree. Johnson is largely forgotten now by most readers (even though he is the most important figure in the second half of the 18th century), but this would make an interesting book club selection."
"I don't get what Tim O'Reilly got out of this book ... I must be missing something. Will re-read, but not until I find some existing literary criticism or analysis of the work."
""'To live according to nature, is to act always with due regard to fitness arising from the relations and qualities of causes and effects; to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity; to co-operate with the general disposition and tendency of the present system of things.' The prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should understand less as he heard him longer." -The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
It was a pain reading it for Brit Lit class with having to have deadlines and arguing with kids who didn't even understand the book. But when read at an enjoyable pace in which you can stop and think about it, it's amazing. Go read it."
Ah the Happy Valley! I know far more about this book than any person should. And although researching it did make me like it a bit more, I'm just not a fan of very long fables."
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