{"product_id":"9780486146652","title":"The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia","description":"Simply written, funny, and compulsively readable, this fine little book has been heralded as one of the finest examples of English prose and offers a compelling glimpse of Samuel Johnson’s moral views. Dashed out over the course of a single week to pay for his mother’s funeral, Johnson’s only novel was the outcome of a lifetime’s thoughts and experiences.\u003cbr\u003eA philosophical romance tracing the pilgrimage of an African prince and his companions to Egypt, \u003ci\u003eRasselas\u003c\/i\u003e ponders a number of subjects — romantic love, flights of imagination, the great discoveries of science, and speculations about the meaning of happiness — all of which, Johnson implies, encourage man with false hopes and unrealistic estimates of what life has to offer.\u003cbr\u003eDirected specifically against eighteenth-century optimism and, more generally, against all simple formulas for achieving happiness, \u003ci\u003eRasselas\u003c\/i\u003e has often been compared with Voltaire’s \u003ci\u003eCandide\u003c\/i\u003e — which was published only a few weeks before Johnson’s work. Both novels have deservedly attained the status of classics.","brand":"Dover Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072857325808,"sku":"9780486146652","price":6.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780486146652_p0.jpg?v=1763708561","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780486146652","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}