Book Description

Book Description
The latest volume in the Boswell Research Edition contains James Boswell`s correspondence over many years with the overseers of his Auchinleck estate in Ayrshire. The letters and the wealth of primary material used to annotate them are a trove of information on the agrarian and social history of eighteenth-century Scotland. The letters present Boswell in a light new to those who know him as a diarist, advocate, and biographer of Samuel Johnson. He appears here as one of the "gentlemen improvers" of largely agricultural southwestern Scotland on the brink of the Industrial Revolution. Accordingly, the volume offers an extensive case study of estate life and management during this important transitional period.. ... Read more

Book Description
The original manuscript of James Boswell`s Life of Johnson-a composite of his basic draft and innumerable revisions-served as printer`s copy despite its maze-like appearance. This book is the first of four volumes to be devoted to that original manuscript, an edition that will make this complex document accessible for the first time. The specially designed text, supplemented by textual and explanatory notes, enables the reader to trace all the substantive changes Boswell made in the process of composition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Excellent Scholarly Edition
The only review for this book ('a reader from Kansas City') is somewhat misguided and perhaps refers to the Life of Johnson in general.

Professor Waingrow's volume (1 of a projected 4) of the Original Manuscript of JamesBoswell's Life of Johnson is an invaluable work of scholarship which shouldstimulate Boswellian and Johnsonian studies for generations to come.

Thereader is able to trace,though Waingrow's thorough and carefulannotations,changes madeto the text by Boswell throughout all stages ofcomposition. Much is explained through detailed footnotes and there is afull introduction which explains Prof. Waingrow's own method of annotationand includes some speculation concerning the interest of the manuscriptedition for scholars.

The work is designed as a companion to theHill-Powell edition of the Life of Johnson; each page is provided with thecorresponding number in their edition.

It thus holds much for thoseinterested in the study of Boswell's methodology,but all Johnsonianscholars and those interested in the tradition of biographical writing willbenefit from this work.

Most overrated biography ever
James Boswell wrote what is considered by many to be the greatest biography ever written.He does do an excellent job of describing to the reader what kind of person Samuel Johnson was, as he makes an artfullyvivid portrait of his subject. However, it is unfortunately better artthan history. It is factually inaccurate,painfully repetitive, and leavesthe reader with little understanding of why Samuel Johnson was an importantman at all. ... Read more

Book Description
Boswell's Life of Johnson is established as one of the foremost literary biographies in the English language. This collection of new essays, commemorating its bicentenary, investigates Boswell's achievements and limitations in both literary and personal contexts, and goes beyond the Life to examine the full range of Boswell's writings and interests (in legal, social, theological, political and linguistic fields). Drawing Boswell out of Johnson's shadow, the volume places him in a wider context, juxtaposing Boswell with other contemporaries and compatriots in the Scottish enlightenment, such as Hume, Robertson and Blair. In addition it investigates some of the critical and theoretical questions surrounding the notion of biographical representation in the Life itself. Boswell emerges as a writer engaged throughout his literary career in constructing a self or series of selves out of his divided Scottish identity. This collection combines new archival research with fresh critical perspectives and constitutes a timely review of Boswell's current status in eighteenth-century literary studies. ... Read more

Amazon.com
James Boswell (1740-1795), author ofThe Life of SamuelJohnson, remains one of the more celebrated biographers in modernliterary history. In his monumental A Life of James Boswell, Peter Martintakes on the formidable task of writing the biographer's biography--of tellingthe story of a man whose numerous journals are renowned for their vividevocation of his life and times. Martin's account is meticulous, dividingBoswell's Life into four discrete periods: "Journey to the Promised Land1740-1763," "Travel and Marriage 1763-1769," "Stagnation: the Middle Years1769-1782," and "Biographer and Laird of Auchinleck: Triumph and Despair1782-1795." This broad-brush approach has the advantage of bringing somecoherence to Boswell's complicated, often frenetic life: the dismal relationshipwith his family, and his early resistance to a career in law; the studies inLondon and Utrecht; the meetings with Rousseau and Voltaire, and his powerfulfriendship with Johnson; his salacious sexuality and fits of morbid depression;his passion for literary London. But, somehow, the vibrancy and intellectualfervor of Boswell's career fails to come through. The scope of this biography isremarkable, but its sheer wealth of detail--sometimes disconnected, and oftenrecounted without comment or analysis--works to obscure the psychological,cultural, and political impact of Boswell's life and works. --VickyLebeauBook Description
This moving biography reassesses James Boswell's achievements anduncovers the breadth of his world, extending from the royal courts and drawing rooms ofLondon to the city's unsavory underworld. Peter Martin dispels the notion that Boswell'smasterly Life of Johnson was an accidental work of genius, and shows that Boswell was awriter of the highest order and a complex, troubled, but ultimately appealing man. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Dazzling
Literary biographies tend to disappoint me and often leave me feeling as if I and the subject of the biography have been buried in details, but this one is utterly readable and brings the irrepressible and obviously very irritating Boswell alive. The book is beautifully printed as well. It was a very great pleasure to read- and Boswell does deserve attention having himself written one of the best books in English.

Still Searching
This is an ample and competent biography of the man who gave us what is termed our first "modern" biography.But, in the end, I think Boswell's biography of Johnson and his other writings (The famous Boswell papers etc) actually reveal more about the man than any biography of Boswell himself I've run across.Martin's accounts of Boswell's seemingly pathological obsession with sex and death make interesting reading, as accounts of sex and death generally do; but couldn't we have more reflection from the biographer here on these matters, a bit more involvement with the subject than the encomia noted by another reviewer?Boswell's ghost is still searching for a biographer as good as he.

Fabulous and lively history
Dr. Martin writes with unabashed affection about his subject, making for lively, energetic reading. This book pours life into a literary figure who, in less caring hands, could have been made out to be dead dull.

A Great Writer Writing About a Great Writer
James Boswell's "Life of Johnson" is commonly regarded as the finest biography in the English language.For 155 years after his death, Boswell was known primarily for this great work.But then in 1949 through 1951, in a series of three separate discoveries, Boswell's journal was found.Boswell is now also regarded as one of history's best diarists. Boswell was a libertine and at times a heavy drinker who, no matter how inebriated he became at the London Literary Club, where he listened to Garrick, Goldsmith, Burke, Reynolds and other brilliant men discuss the topics of the day, would race home to enter their conversation in his journal.So he preserved much of Samuel Johnson's wit ("Fishing: a stick and a string, a fish on one end and a fool on the other.") and philosophy.Peter Martin concludes that Boswell's journal is the best reading that exists regarding London in the late 1700s.Martin's book is an exhaustively researched and beautifully written account of an eccentric, gifted man.

A great biography of the great biographer
Anyone who has read and been fascinated with Boswell's Life of Johnson will do well to read this book.Peter Martin has done a bang-up job of bringing Boswell to life, extensively quoting from his journals and letters, narrating the stories of his Grand Tour,the meetings with Rousseau and Voltaire,and his friendships with the likes of Burke, Reynolds,Goldsmith,Garrick,and of course,Johnson. Boswell's "hypochondria",or chronic depression, is a main topic,and we see how it affected his marriage,his friendships,and his writings.A must read for all Johnsonians and anglophiles. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first comprehensive treatment of Johnson and Boswell in relation to Scotland, as revealed in their accounts of their trip to the Hebrides in 1773, the Journey to the Western Islands and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.Locating the Scottish journey both within the context of travel writing in the decade of Cook's Pacific voyages, and in an intellectual, cultural, and literary context, Pat Rogers's new interpretation of the writers' famous accounts describes the `Grand Detour' which the travellers made in opposition to the standard Grand Tour expectations.Johnson and Boswell: The Transit of Caledonia suggests a reason why Johnson undertook his long-planned visit in old age, and explores the relation between his Journey and the letters he wrote to Hester Thrale.Boswell's complex motives in making the tour are also explored, including his divided views concerning his Scottish identity, and his desire at a concealed level to replay the heroic venture of Prince Charles Edward thirty years before.Setting the journey in the context of anti-Scottish feeling in the period, the book relates the themes and motives of the two narratives to the background of the Scottish Enlightenment on such issues as emigration and primitivism, and offers fresh reading of the major survey by Johnson and Boswell of Scotland after the Jacobite risings. ... Read more