1953
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
411
Number of Pages
Part of Series
This volume, 1st in the Yale Research Series of Boswell's journals, covers his emotionally eventful youthful travels thru German & Swiss territories, from mid-6/1764 (after law studies in Utrecht) to 1/1/1765, when he crossed the Alps for the next stages of his European tour, in Italy, Corsica & France. The volume is the Research Series parallel to Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany & Switzerland, 1764, ed. F.A. Pottle 1953, whose annotation the editor, Marlies K. Danziger, has greatly deepened, expanded, supplemented & occasionally corrected. In keeping with the editorial policies of the Series, it restores his original spelling, punctuation, paragraphing & imperfect French). Detailed notes illuminate the contemporary political & historical context as well as a vast array of contemporary issues, concepts & personalities unfamiliar to modern readers—especially English-speakers. As well as the text of the fully-written journal, the volume includes his personal daily memoranda & his frequently revealing 'Ten Lines a Day' poems; the autobiographical 'Ebauche de ma vie' written for Rousseau, along with its various drafts, outlines & attendant correspondence; his detailed expense accounts (showing the fluctuating currencies & erratic economy of a Europe not yet formed into modern nation-states); & four maps, adapted from contemporary cartographic records, illustrating his complicated & often arduous itinerary. Boswell's European travels followed his exhilarating stay in London of 1762-63 & his mostly bleak winter in the United Provinces in 1763-64. Tho forever to be best known for his later accounts of his principal biographical subject, Samuel Johnson, Boswell has emerged since the recovery of his private papers as a compelling autobiographer, & here shows his fascination with, & abilities to record with typical liveliness & percipience, persons across a strikingly diverse social range. The European journal, which Boswell had unfulfilled hopes later in life of revising & publishing in the manner of his Corsican & Hebridean diaries, records the young Scot's quest for experience in hopes of a cosmopolitan broadening, cultural enrichment, & religious & spiritual security, & conversations culminating in his gratifying meetings with Rousseau & Voltaire. At the same time, it documents in close personal detail an unstable Europe rebuilding & restoring itself a little more than a year after the end of the 7 Years' War, a Europe whose quest for stability amid ominous political & religious fluctuation mirrors & parallels the diarist's own.
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