In 1762 James Boswell, then twenty-two years old, left Edinburgh for London. The famous Journal he kept during the next nine months is an intimate account of his encounters with the high-life and the low-life in London. Frank and confessional as a personal portrait of the young Boswell, the Journal is also revealing as a vivid portrayal of life in eighteenth-century London. This new edition includes an introduction by Peter Ackroyd, which discusses Boswell’s life and achievement. “Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book.”—Peter Ackroyd, from the introduction. “Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book.”—Peter Ackroyd, from the Introduction. Praise for the earlier edition: "[The journal is] more perceptive and uninhibited and magically alive than one could have hoped... Boswell transforms the most trifling occurrences into adventures, and imparts to the reader his own surpassing lust for experience and his keen sense of the fascination of life."—Austin Wright, Virginia Quarterly Review "The journal is admirably edited and annotated.”—W. H. Auden, New Yorker The late Frederick Pottle, Sterling Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University, was editor, bibliographer, and biographer of James Boswell. Peter Ackroyd is the author of London: The Biography, The Life of Thomas More, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination, and many other books.

Memoranda and Letters from James Boswell's time in Holland studying law. The memoranda to himself are quite intimate and dealing with his day to day activities and his ongoing battle with depression.

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.

Book by Boswell, James

Travel journal first published in 1785. In 1773, Boswell enticed his famous English friend Samuel Johnson to accompany him on a tour through the highlands and western islands of Scotland. Johnson was then in his mid sixties. The two travellers set out from Edinburgh and skirted the eastern and northeastern coasts of Scotland, passing through St Andrews, Aberdeen and Inverness. They then passed into the highlands and spent several weeks on various islands in the Hebrides, including Skye, Coll, and Mull. After a visit to Boswell's estate at Auchinleck, the travellers returned to Edinburgh. Johnson published his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland on 18 January 1775.