RASSELAS, the name usually given to a
moral story with an Oriental setting written by
the famous lexicographer and essayist, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and published in the spring of 1759, in two volumes, under the title of ‘The Prince of Abyssinia: A Tale.’ It reached a second edition the same year, and has since been often reprinted and translated, maintaining its rank as a notable if somewhat old-fashioned English classic. There is uncertainty as to just when and why and in how short a space of time it was written, but it seems clear that Johnson composed it rapidly at the period of his mother's death in January 1759, and that he probably used some of the money it brought him for flial purposes connected with that event
Scholars have exercised themselves over the
sources and the materials of the story, and
have shown that Johnson did not invent his
happy valley, his Abyssinian paradise; but they
have taken away none of the credit due him
for selecting an impressive theme — the vain
search of youth after happiness — and for treating
it with adequate weight of thought, soundness
of feeling and dignity of style. The
book plainly belongs with the grave, solid, somewhat
magniloquent essays of his middle period
rather than with the less stilted biographies of
his old age, and it holds by his early years in
owing something to his translation of the French
version of Lobo's 'Voyage to Abyssinia.'
Everyone of its 49 short chapters, however
little calculated to arouse the interest of the
experienced reader of modern novels, is
thoroughly representative of Johnson himself — of
his sturdy morality, his common sense, his wide
knowledge of men and books, his sombre but
far from cowardly and depressing views of
life.
The plot is simple in the extreme. Rasselas, shut up in a beautiful valley, “till the order of succession should call him to the throne,” grows weary of the factitious entertainments of the place, and after much brooding escapes with his sister Nekavah, her attendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac. They are to see the world and search for happiness, but after some sojourn in Egypt, where they frequent various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive
the futility of their search and abruptly return
to Abyssinia. That the plot should be so simple, that local color should be almost nonexistent, that episodic elements, e.g., the story of Imlac and that of the mad astronomer, should abound, is not surprising when one considers what didactic purposes the Oriental tale of 18th century western Europe was intended to serve and remembers that Johnson was a moralist and essayist, not a novelist. What does surprise is that with so little of incident, with no love-making, with few endeavors to charm the fancy, with but slight recognition of the claims of sentiment, ‘Rasselas’ is none the less a story that deserves its fame. It does this, not so much because it is, like ‘Candide,’ but in a very different way, an effective protest against shallow optimism, whether of deist or of “hustler,” but because it contains not a little of the courageous philosophy of life which a great, unique personality had formed for himself at the height of a literary career full of moving vicissitudes. Consult the editions of G. Birkbeck Hill and of O. F. Emerson.