JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-84). Irene: A Tragedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane. London: R. Dodsley, 1749. 8°, half-title, woodcut head- and tailpieces, initials, 2 pages of publishers' advertisements at end (one small wormtrack to margin of title and first text leaf, some very faint marginal spotting and browning). Modern old-style panelled calf, spine gilt in compartments with green morocco lettering-piece. Provenance: Doris Louise Benz (morocco ex-libris label). A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. Courtney & Smith p.24: 'Part of the tragedy had been written by Johnson at his school of Edial, near Lichfield, in 1736. He continued writing it in lodgings at Greenwich in 1737, and it was finished at Lichfield in the summer of that year. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, declined to put it on the stage, and it slumbered in manuscript for twelve years. By this time Garrick was the manager of that theatre, and it was brought out there on Feb. 6, 1748/9 (Genest, English Stage, iv. 265-7)'; Rothschild 1231.