Philosophy

Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

by Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson is said to have written this short tale in the evenings of a single week in 1759, to pay for his mother’s funeral. A prince escapes from the Happy Valley to find the choice of life that will make him happy, and does not find it. Austen called him “my dear Dr Johnson” in a letter, and her brother Henry named him as her favourite moral writer in prose.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 2 hr 30 min

Where to find it

The Austen Room

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #652. In the public domain in the United States.