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BOSWELL, JAMES (1740–1795)

BOSWELL, JAMES (1740–1795), Scottish biographer, lawyer, and man of letters. James Boswell is most famous as the author of the Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), perhaps the most celebrated biography in the English language. He was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell, judge and laird of Auchinleck, whose title came from the family estate in Ayrshire, western Scotland. Following his father's advice, Boswell agreed to study law at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, but, lacking enthusiasm, in 1762 he traveled to London seeking a commission in the Foot Guards and, much to his father's disapproval, a more active and glamorous life in the higher echelons of the British army. Boswell's year living in London is recorded in his London Journal 1762–1763, a text that details Boswell's daily rounds of socializing, visiting prostitutes, going to the theater, and mixing with London's literary elite, including Samuel Johnson, to whom he was introduced on 16 May 1763 at Thomas Davies' book shop, and with whom he held a lifelong correspondence and friendship. Moving to Holland in 1763 to continue his study of law at Utrecht, Boswell was rewarded for following his father's career advice with a grand tour through Germany, France, and Italy. Visiting Corsica in 1765, and befriending General Paoli, who was fighting for its independence, Boswell turned his experience of traveling to this island into a successful travel book, An Account of Corsica (1768), which established his literary reputation in London. In 1769 he married Margaret Montgomerie and, dividing his time between his Edinburgh home and Johnson's house in London, he began to collect material for an intended biography of Johnson, persuading his subject to take a tour of Scotland and the Hebrides with him in 1773, a journey he turned into a travel narrative, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, which was published in 1785. Elected to Johnson's exclusive Literary Club in 1773, Boswell also contributed essays as "The Hypochondriak" to The London Magazine from 1777 to 1783 on subjects ranging from drinking to memory, but perhaps most famously on diary writing, which was a constant and, indeed, obsessive passion of his, causing him to write that "a man should not live more than he can record, as a farmer should not have a larger crop than he can gather in" ("On Diaries," 1783). Following the death of his father in 1782, Boswell spent more time at the family estate in Ayrshire, meeting Johnson for the last time in London in 1784.

After Johnson's death in 1784, Boswell began to work exclusively on the Life, assisted by his friend the Shakespearean scholar Edmond Malone in collecting and editing Johnson's voluminous papers and correspondence. The Life was finally published in 1791, eclipsing all other biographies of Johnson with its scope and liveliness, and silencing those who thought Boswell was not serious enough to produce a memoir of one of the period's most revered literary figures. In his final years, and despite recurring bouts of ill health, Boswell continued to practice law and to travel the country as "the Great Biographer." Boswell died in London in 1795 and his body was interred in the family vault at Auchinleck. His papers remained in the attic at the estate and were unread until rediscovered by Lord Talbot in 1905. Once uncovered, his papers were shipped to Talbot's estate in Ireland and, after many years of scholarly bidding, were finally collated by Yale University Library in 1949. Yale has since published Boswell's correspondence and journals, and the frankness of these texts reveals intimate details about his own eventful life and documents fascinating details about literary society in eighteenth-century Britain.

See also Biography and Autobiography; Diaries; Edinburgh; English Literature and Language; Johnson, Samuel; Scotland; Travel and Travel Literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Boswell, James. The Journal of a Tour to Corsica and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli. Edited by S. C. Roberts. Cambridge, U.K., 1923. Reprint 1966.

——. Life of Samuel Johnson: Together with Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey into North Wales. Edited by George Birkbeck Hill. 6 vols. Rev. enl. ed. Oxford, 1934–1964.

——. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Edited by Peter Levi. London, 1984.

——. The Yale Edition of Boswell's Correspondence and Journals. Edited by Frederick A. Pottle et al. 15 vols. London, 1950–1993.

Secondary Sources

Brown, Anthony E. Boswellian Studies: A Bibliography. 3rd rev. ed. Edinburgh, 1991.

Hyde, Mary. The Impossible Friendship: Boswell and Mrs. Thrale. Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1972.

Pottle, Frederick A. Pride and Negligence: The History of the Boswell Papers. London, 1982.

Rogers, Pat. Johnson and Boswell: The Transit of Caledonia. Oxford and New York, 1995.

Sisman, Adam. Boswell's Presumptuous Task: Writing the Life of Dr. Johnson. London and New York, 2000.

ALISON STENTON