James Boswell, a Short Life.

by D.B. Wyndham-Lewis

285 pages, Hardcover

First published March 3, 1980

About the author

Dominic Bevan Wyndham-Lewis FRSL, was a British writer best known for his humorous contributions to newspapers and his biographies. He was educated at Oxford, and prior to serving in the Welch Regiment during World War I, he had intended to pursue a career in the legal profession. But after suffering two bouts of shell shock and one of malaria, he set his sights on journalism.

Following the war, he joined the Daily Express, where he was briefly the newspaper's Literary Editor. In 1919, he was put in charge of the paper's humorous "By the Way" column and adopted the pseudonym "Beachcomber". Then, when, in April 1924, Wyndham-Lewis left to join the Daily Mail, he recommended the better-known J. B. Morton as his successor.

In the mid-1920s, Wyndham-Lewis lived in Paris whilst carrying out historical research. He later wrote several literary biographies, acclaimed for both their spirited subjectivity and their attention to historical detail, taking on subjects ranging from Rabelais and Moliere to Boswell and Habsburg Emperor Charles V.

After returning to Britain in the 1930s, Wyndham-Lewis turned to humorous anthologies, and in 1954 he collaborated with Ronald Searle on The Terror of St Trinian's (under the pen-name 'Timothy Shy'). He also co-authored, with Charles Bennett, the screenplay for the first version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much.