Rasselas

First published in 1759, this philosophical tale follows Rasselas, a prince of Abyssinia, who grows restless in the closed Happy Valley and escapes with his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah, and the poet Imlac. In Egypt they study the 'choice of life' among shepherds, hermits, scholars, a fashionable society, and a mad astronomer. Each way of living reveals a new disappointment. The prose is formal and argumentative; incidents exist to test a claim about happiness. The book is a moral fable in the form of a journey, not a realistic novel of Ethiopia and not a treatise without characters.

Quarter bound in dark blue cloth, white paper boards with a pattern in yellow, green and grey by Bawden. Yellow endleaves. Yellow or pale blue slipcase.