Johnson was a staunch opponent of slavery, revered by abolitionists, and Rasselas became a name adopted by emancipated slaves.[1]
Editions
The first American edition was published in 1768. The title page of this edition carried a quotation, inserted by the publisher Robert Bell from La Rochefoucauld: "The labour or Exercise of the Body, freeth Man from the Pains of the Mind; and this constitutes the Happiness of the Poor".[1]
It was used by Philip Rusher in 1804 as the text of choice for the first use of his unsuccessful, paper-saving Patent Type with no descenders.[25][26]
A quarto illustrated edition was published in 1805 by William Miller with engravings by Abraham Raimbach (after pictures by Robert Smirke).
Continuations
Rasselas was a jumping-off point for at least two continuations by other authors:[27]
- Dinarbas (1790) by Cornelia Knight.[28]
- The Second Part of the History of Rasselas (1835) by Elizabeth Pope Whately, wife of Richard Whately.[28]
Radio adaptation
A radio adaptation of Rasselas by Jonathan Holloway was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 24 May 2015,[29] with Ashley Zhangazha as Rasselas, Jeff Rawle as Samuel Johnson and Lucian Msamati as the poet Imlac. Cynthia Erivo made her BBC radio drama debut as Princess Nekayah.[30] The drama was recorded at Dr Johnson's House, 17 Gough Square, in the City of London,[31] where he wrote Rasselas in 1759.[30] Sound design was by David Chilton, and the drama was introduced by Celine Luppo McDaid, Curator of Dr Johnson's House.[32] It was produced and directed by Amber Barnfather.[30]
Cast
- Samuel Johnson – Jeff Rawle
- Arthur Murphy – Kevin Trainor
- Housekeeper / Pekuah – Adjoa Andoh
- Princess Nekayah – Cynthia Erivo
- Prince Rasselas – Ashley Zhangazha
- Imlac – Lucian Msamati
- Aeronaut – Richard Cordery
- AJ – Gabriel Mokaké
- Ahmed – Amir El-Masry
- Mohammed / Intelligence Man – Zubin Varla
Cultural allusions
Inés Joyes y Blake translated The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (on left) and it included one of the first feminist essays in Spain (on the right)[33]Rasselas is mentioned numerous times in later notable literature:
- Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen – Fanny Price refers to Dr. Johnson's celebrated judgment when she is comparing Mansfield Park and Portsmouth.
- Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë – Helen Burns reads it.
- Cranford (1851) by Elizabeth Gaskell – Captain Brown (who is reading The Pickwick Papers) denigrates Rasselas, thus offending Miss Jenkyns (who is a great admirer of Johnson).
- The House of the Seven Gables (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Rasselas is read by Hepzibah Pyncheon.
- The Mill on the Floss (1860) by George Eliot – Maggie reads it.
- Little Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott – the book is dropped on the floor by Jo March as she talks to Mr Laurence about his Grandson Laurie's prank.
- Middlemarch (1871) by George Eliot – the book is enjoyed by Lydgate as a child, along with Gulliver's Travels, the dictionary, and the Bible.
- Rasselas was read by explorer Henry Stanley when he was a young man recently released from a Victorian workhouse, working as a school teacher in Wales. This is recorded in Tim Jeal's biography Stanley – The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer.
- The Mountains of Rasselas by Thomas Pakenham – The title of Pakhenham's account of exploring Ethiopia to find the original royal mountaintop royal prisons alludes to Johnson's work. Pakenham explicitly mentions Johnson's work in this book.
- Sirak Heruy, son of Ethiopian intellectual Heruy Welde Sellase, translated Rasselas into Amharic, one of the major languages of Ethiopia. (Published in 1946/47.)[34][35]
- C.S. Lewis mentions Rasselas in a footnote to the second of his Riddell Memorial lectures on values and natural law, later published as The Abolition of Man: "Let us hope that Rasselas, chap. 22, gives the right picture of what [Dr. C. H. Waddington's] philosophy amounts to in action. ('The philosopher, supposing the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the present system.')"[36] – Retrieved from The Columbia University Augustine Club.
- Rasselas is mentioned significantly in two of Ursula Dubosarsky's novels – Zizzy Zing and Abyssinia.[37]
- In The Book of Sequels by Henry Beard, Christopher Cerf, Sarah Durkee and Sean Kelly, "Wrassle-Ass" appears in a section called "Adult Sequels".
- The description of the Happy Valley is very similar to the poem "Kubla Khan" written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about forty years later, in 1797, though not published until 1816.
- "Rasselas was too happy and went out to seek unhappiness." Line in Morning Mist, a short story by Japanese author Tatsuo Nagai (translated by Edward Seidensticker in ISBN 978-0804812269).
- Emily Dickinson names a bird Mr. Rasselas in a letter to Mary Bowles dated 10 December 1859 (L212).
Locations
The community of Rasselas, Pennsylvania, located in Elk County, was named after Rasselas Wilcox Brown, whose father, Isaac Brown Jr., was fond of Johnson's story.[38]
A Vale (or Valley) named after Rasselas is located in Tasmania within the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park Latitude (DMS): 42° 34' 60 S Longitude (DMS): 146° 19' 60 E.[39]
