{ "item_title" : "The History of Rasselas", "item_author" : [" Samuel Johnson "], "item_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.A philosophical romance tracing the pilgrimage of an African prince and his companions to Egypt, Rasselas 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.Directed specifically against eighteenth-century optimism and, more generally, against all simple formulas for achieving happiness, Rasselas has often been compared with Voltaire's Candide -- which was published only a few weeks before Johnson's work. Both novels have deservedly attained the status of classics.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/48/644/094/048644094X_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "6.95", "online_price" : "6.95", "our_price" : "6.95", "club_price" : "6.95", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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