REGARDING THE CURIOUS STRUCTURAL AND THEMATIC SIMILARITY BETWEEN JOHNSON’S RASSELAS AND SAADI’S GOLESTAN AND WITH RESPECT TO NUMEROUS REFERENCES TO PERSIAN LITERATURE IN RASSELAS, THE RESEARCHER MADE A QUICK RESEARCH THROUGH BOSWELL’S LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON AND JOHNSON’S LETTERS AND SHE DISCOVERED THAT JOHNSON HAS SHOWN SPECIAL INTEREST IN PERSIAN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. THIS BECAME A MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCHER TO CARRY ON AN EXTENSIVE RESEARCH TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE SOURCE OF THIS INTEREST AND TO SEE IF JOHNSON HAS BEEN PROBABLY INFLUENCED BY PERSIAN CLASSICAL WRITERS, ESPECIALLY SAADI.THEREFORE, WHAT WILL FOLLOW IS THE RESULT OF THE FINDINGS BASED ON TWO HYPOTHESES QUESTIONS: (1) HAS THERE BEEN ANY BASIS FOR JOHNSON’S SPECIFIC ATTENTION TO PERSIAN LITERATURE AND IF THERE HAS BEEN ANY INTEREST IN OR FAMILIARITY WITH PERSIAN LITERATURE, HOW EXTENSIVE OR PROFOUND HAS IT BEEN? (2) WITH REGARD TO THE DEEP INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH NEO-CLASSICISTS ON ENGLISH NEO-CLASSICISTS IN THE 18TH CENTURY, IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY THAT, EVEN IF JOHNSON HAD HAD NO ACCESS TO THE ENGLISH TEXT OF GOLESTAN, HE HAD AVAILED HIMSELF OF THE LATER ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF PERSIAN POETS WHO HAD WIDELY BEEN READ AND APPRECIATED BY THE LEARNED AND THE CULTIVATED CIRCLES IN EUROPE AND ESPECIALLY IN FRANCE, THROUGH THIRD-PARTY TRANSLATIONS EITHER IN FRENCH OR LATIN? AND COULD THIS INFLUENCE HAVE LED TO HIS EMPHATIC COMMENTS ABOUT PERSIAN POETRY AND HAVE INFORMED THE STRUCTURE, NARRATION AND THE THEMATIC MODE OF RASSELAS?