Uncovers African influences on the Western imagination during the eighteenth century, paying particular attention to the ways Ethiopia inspired and shaped the work of Samuel Johnson.
The principal subject of this book is the allure of the exotic, as represented by Abyssinia, to the British imagination.
He is also the subject of perhaps the most famous biography in literature, namely The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, often abbreviated to Rasselas, is a 1759 novella by Samuel Johnson.
Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia (or Ethiopia), grows dissatisfied with the unceasing pleasures of his utopian home in the Happy Valley.
The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson: A voyage to Abyssinia
The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson: Rasselas and Other Tales. 16