Rasselas

– The mad philosopher in Rasselas, who imagined that he regulated the weather and distributed the seasons, could never enjoy a moment's repose, lest he should not make "to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and sunshine."

Letters for Literary Ladies: To Which is Added, An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification 1798

His novel "Rasselas" -- written in a week -- is the mirror image of a self-help book, an exploration of all the ways that you can't expect happiness.

Dr. Johnson, Reconsidered 2008

When the sound of their shooting brakes announced their arrival, Mr. Calder would call Rasselas indoors.

The Uninvited Gilbert, Michael 1960

I was introduced to Johnson — and read "Rasselas" for the first time — almost 50 years ago in an undergraduate course at Harvard taught by Walter Jackson Bate, the great Johnson scholar.

On the Quest for Happiness Charles E. Pierce Jr. 2009

In "Rasselas," above all, he displays his deepest thinking about the complex forces at work in the human psyche and the endless quest for meaning — indeed for happiness — in human life.

On the Quest for Happiness Charles E. Pierce Jr. 2009

But few readers today have read his poem, "The Vanity of Human Wishes"; any of his fine moral essays; or his short novel, "Rasselas" (1759).

On the Quest for Happiness Charles E. Pierce Jr. 2009

For in the essays of the 1750s and in "Rasselas," Johnson explores his view of human nature and life with an intelligence and wisdom that rivals the best of Montaigne and Pascal and anticipates many of the insights of Freud.

On the Quest for Happiness Charles E. Pierce Jr. 2009

Johnson wrote "Rasselas" in a single week to pay the expenses of his mother's funeral, using the convention of an innocent man on a quest as a vehicle to express his deepest moral convictions.

On the Quest for Happiness Charles E. Pierce Jr. 2009

The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide" is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must have been suspected of imitation.

A History of English Prose Fiction Bayard Tuckerman

"Rasselas," and Beckford, in "Vathek," had drawn on the romantic features of Eastern life.

A History of English Prose Fiction Bayard Tuckerman