The Life Of Samuel Johnson: Including A Journal Of His Tour To The Hebrides; Volume 5

by James Boswell, John Wright, John Wilson Croker (Creator)

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354 pages, Paperback

First published August 22, 2015

About the author

James Boswell, 10th Laird of Auchinleck and 1st Baronet was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck and his wife Euphemia Erskine, Lady Auchinleck. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. Boswell, who is best known as Samuel Johnson’s biographer, inherited his father’s estate Auchinleck in Ayrshire. His name has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer.

Boswell is also known for the detailed and frank journals that he wrote for long periods of his life, which remained undiscovered until the 1920s. These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently, of his tour of Scotland with Johnson. His journals also record meetings and conversations with eminent individuals belonging to The Club, including Lord Monboddo, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith. His written works focus chiefly on others, but he was admitted as a good companion and accomplished conversationalist in his own right.

Reviews

[Rex Libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1773 Boswell and Johnson took a tour of Scotland and the Hebrides. As always, Boswell does an excellent account of chronicling their adventures. While Johnson is an interesting subject, Boswell's narrative talents would make the quotidian routines of the most boring person in the world seem quite interesting.