Life of Johnson, Volume 1 1709-1765

by James Boswell, George Birkbeck Hill (Editor)

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Biography, History

660 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

James Boswell, 10th Laird of Auchinleck and 1st Baronet was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck and his wife Euphemia Erskine, Lady Auchinleck. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. Boswell, who is best known as Samuel Johnson’s biographer, inherited his father’s estate Auchinleck in Ayrshire. His name has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer.

Boswell is also known for the detailed and frank journals that he wrote for long periods of his life, which remained undiscovered until the 1920s. These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently, of his tour of Scotland with Johnson. His journals also record meetings and conversations with eminent individuals belonging to The Club, including Lord Monboddo, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith. His written works focus chiefly on others, but he was admitted as a good companion and accomplished conversationalist in his own right.

Reviews

[Jacob Bornheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stages of reading Boswell's Johnson thus far:
1) Believing Johnson was a genius.
2) Knowing Johnson was an idiot.
3) Shipping Johnson and Boswell.

The moment Boswell meets Johnson is electric.

I'm having so much fun with this one, Johnson is quite often extremely relatable: "I always feel an inclination to do nothing" (p. 268). Going to take a nice break before tackling volume 2.

[Bumbles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning was a little dull as Johnson, as well as his family and acquaintances, were introduced. But the minute Boswell met Johnson, I was entranced. This is a wonderfully written and prodigious effort on Boswell's part. I love the conversations both have on various topics, from Hume and Voltaire to general advice and jokes. Many quotable passages from both Boswell and Johnson.

[Lolla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time travelling with an erudite articulate guide and a timeless portly witty egotist hero in Mr Johnson himself.

[Lance Greenlee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps nowhere else in the landscape betwixt Austen and Yeats does the gap yawn so widely between promise and delivery as it does in James Boswell's "Life of Johnson." I cannot recall half the sources of its praise I have encountered - most recently from literary blogger Malcolm Guite and the pseudo memoir "How Green is my Valley." It began slowly; I persevered. It didn't improve; I trudged onward. The tome is an astonishing compendium of miscellany, notes of scraps, and tedium continuum. Entire chapters read like catalogs of his minor works and quibbling over bits possibly ascribable to him. Modern readers should expect this work will require a vast investment before any returns can be seen.

[Dwayne Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A humiliating volume in which men of the Enlightenment exercise supreme powers of expression. A humbling check on the aspirations of any would-be intellectual.

[Peter J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm believe I'm more a fan of Boswell then of Johnson, the latter seeming quite arrogant to me. I may warm up to him in the later volumes though.