The World of James Boswell

James Boswell 

October 29, 1740 — May 19, 1795   

“The Great Biographer”
This website has been created in an attempt to stimulate interest in James Boswell, the lesser known member of the team of Johnson and Boswell, 18th century men of letters.  It also presents me with an opportunity to exhibit some of the books in my personal collection. I have over 340 volumes dealing with Boswell, Johnson and Piozzi.

There are several excellent sites devoted to Johnson that can be found on the Internet. Many of them have direct quotations from both his writings and the books published about him. Click here to visit other internet resources related to Samuel Johnson.

I do not intend to detract in any degree from Samuel Johnson’s justifiable reputation, however, a quote from Lord Macauley reflects his view of the importance of Boswell to Johnson’s immortality.

“Johnson’s fame rests not upon what Johnson himself wrote but upon what Boswell wrote about him. Boswell’s book has done for him more than the best of his own books could do.”

This is of course a great exaggeration, if not an outright misrepresentation but drives home my main point. Boswell is worth studying because of his genius, as well as, his human weakness. His candor provides a splendid snapshot into eighteenth century life.

The Boswell Family Crest “The Hooded Hawk”

Vraye Foy translates in the Old French to ‘True Faith’

I first became interested in Boswell in 1950 with the publication of the London Journal. I greeted each succeeding volume with great anticipation, enjoying both the mundane and the unusual experiences that he reported. Because of the chronological sequence of the books I felt that I was watching an individual march through life, although to a different drummer than most people do. His anguish and his joy became that of everyman. His complete frankness, since his journals were never intended for public view but kept for his private archives and shown only to a few select friends, disclose his confidential thoughts and emotions as never before reflected in any previous autobiographical publication. He became alive and real—not a historical figure but a flesh and blood person.

Walking down High Street,

                                              By  Thomas Rowlandson

During the interim periods while I was waiting for the publication of new volumes, I naturally became immersed in Johnson’s writings. The writing style of these two individuals who traveled down the path of the written word arm in arm, as shown above in Rowlandson’s etching of their ramble down Edinburgh’s High Street, is as different as could be. Boswell writes in a clear, lucid, contemporary manner. He is easy to read, lacking subtlety or involved phraseology. His thoughts are simply expressed. Boswell is far from being the great moralist that Johnson was but spent his life attempting to accomplish the ordinary objectives while having as much pleasure as possible.

HOME PAGE    

James Boswell | Hester Lynch Piozzi | Samuel Johnson | Miscellany