Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson

by Adam Sisman

James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson is the most celebrated of all biographies, acknowledged as one of the greatest and most entertaining books in the English language. Yet Boswell himself has generally been considered little more than an idiot and condemned by posterity as a lecher and drunk. How could such a fool have written such a book? With great wit, Adam Sisman here tells the story of Boswell's presumptuous task-the making of the greatest biography of all time. Sisman traces the friendship between Boswell and Samuel Johnson, his great mentor, and provides a fascinating account of Boswell's seven-year struggle to write The Life of Samuel Johnson .

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, British Literature, Books About Books, 18th Century, Literature

368 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2000

About the author

Adam Sisman is the author of various biographies, all well received by critics.

His first book, published in 1994, was a life of Trevor-Roper's colleague and rival, A.J.P. Taylor. In 2006, Sisman published a much-admired study of the friendship between Wordsworth and Coleridge. He has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography/Autobiography

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pressing ever onward with my Sam & Bozzy summer reading I raced through this for the second time.

Yes, it's got a rather off-putting title, and it's all about a guy writing a book about another guy. And who cares because they're all dead, right?

Well, not quite - because of Bozzy they're alive, horribly terribly alive.

James Boswell was the last word in political incorrectness - dig it, he once wrote a pamphlet supporting slavery! He wasn't being exactly serious, but really. He also had 14 cases of gonorrhea before he died at the age of 54 of complications relating to gonorrhea and being a full-tilt drunk. From age 22 onwards, whether married or not (and when married in the full knowledge that his wife had terminal tuberculosis), there wasn't a prostitute in Edinburgh or London he wouldn't make a beeline for. And not a chambermaid he wouldn't grope. All this was aside from the various affairs with married ladies. And he wasn't that good looking either.

He was a Scotsman who couldn't stand Scotland or the Scots; he was a literary groupie who liked to collect famous people; he wanted to be an MP and was perpetually irritated to find that no one wanted him; he was a dreadful person in practically every respect, except that most people really liked him and kept inviting him back. So clap or no clap, he dined out doggedly, night after night, relentlessly hoovering up the sauteed scrotum of peasant or whatever was in front of him, and trying to fondle Lady Fontella Bassingham-Ffordingly-ffrench at the same time.

Our author here muses on how deliciously ironic it is that of the two, it was the fool Boswell and not the great genius Johnson who wrote the book which is still read with pleasure in the 21st century. By the 19th century Johnson's works were out of print and had become footnotes to Boswell's Life.

Well, I have to wonder if anyone does read Boswell either anymore. They should, because it's great fun, but who reads anything old.

Anyway, for fans of Sam & Bozzy this book is the cat's pyjamas.

[Maricruz · Rating 5 out of 5]

(reseña en español al final)

"For the first 100 years or so after the Life of Johnson was published, critics tended to take the line that it was a great book written by a simpleton who just happened to be in the right place at the right time".

Anyone who has enjoyed Life of Johnson should read this book. I guess it's not an absolute must to read Life of Johnson first, but I'm sure you'll get more of Boswell's Presumptuous Task if you do.

Adam Sisman divides the book into three main parts, "Life Lived", "Life Written" and "Life Published", about, respectively, the youth of Boswell and the time he spent with Johnson, the time it took him to write his magnum opus, and the brief four years or so he got to live after he published it. At first it seems Sisman is nothing but deepening the impression of Boswell as a twat, as he depicts all his flaws: he was absurdly naive, a blabbermouth, a social fuckup who thwarted his own ambitions of getting a sinecure, he spent too much time drinking and whoring, he was a disastrous husband. On the other hand he also shows him as an entertaining and congenial companion, a person whose blunders came from his naivety more than from malice, a gifted impersonator of friends and acquaintances. You could really have a good time with good ol' Bozzie. But above all, this book is a vindication of Boswell's genius as a biographer, as it shows how Life of Samuel Johnson was carefully researched and crafted. It was something extremely novel for its time and remarkable even by modern standards. Adam Sisman proves this was not a book that could be written just by luck or repeating Johnson's dictums like a parrot.

I was a little afraid of this book being a letdown. I had such a great time reading Life of Johnson years ago, that I didn't want anything to spoil the memory, not even in the most indirect way. But it hasn't disappointed me at all. On the contrary. If there is something like a Johnson-Boswell universe, Boswell's Presumptuous Task must be really near its centre, just floating in the same quirky, exhilarating atmosphere the Life is. Johnson's, I mean. Oh well, Life in general too.


" ~ " ~ " ~ " ~ " ~ "

«Durante aproximadamente los primeros 100 años tras publicarse Vida de Samuel Johnson, la crítica tendía a estar de acuerdo en considerarlo un gran libro escrito por un simplón cuyo único mérito residió en estar en el lugar adecuado en el momento adecuado».

Cualquiera que haya disfrutado de la Vida de Samuel Johnson debiera leer este otro libro. Supongo que no es absolutamente imprescindible leer la Vida antes, pero estoy segura de que así se aprovecha mucho más la lectura de Presuntuoso afán.

Adam Sisman divide su libro en tres partes principales, «Vida vivida», «Vida escrita» y «Vida publicada», sobre, respectivamente, la juventud de Boswell y el tiempo que pasó con Johnson, el que le llevó escribir su magnum opus, y los breves cuatro años o así que logró vivir después de publicarla. Al principio cualquiera diría que Adam Sisman lo que busca es afianzar la imagen de Boswell como un tontolaba, ya que muestra todos sus defectos: era absurdamente ingenuo y bocazas, un metepatas que arruinaba todos sus intentos de asegurarse una sinecura, pasaba demasiado tiempo bebiendo y yéndose de putas, fue un marido desastroso. Por otro lado también nos lo presenta como una compañía agradable y amena, alguien que si metía la pata era más por inconsciencia que por malicia, un imitador brillante de amistades y conocidos. Podías llegar a pasártelo muy bien con el bueno de Bozzie. Pero sobre todo, este libro es una defensa del genio de Boswell como biógrafo. Vida de Samuel Johnson fue un libro cuidadosamente documentado y escrito, una biografía sumamente novedosa para la época y una obra impresionante incluso para los estándares modernos. Adam Sisman muestra cómo de ninguna manera podía haber sido el resultado de la suerte, o de repetir las máximas de Johnson como un loro.

Me daba un poco de cosa que este libro me fuera a decepcionar. Lo pasé tan bien con la Vida de Johnson hace unos años, que no quería que nada empañara ese buen recuerdo, ni siquiera tangencialmente. Y no he salido decepcionada, al contrario. Si hay algo así como un universo johnson-boswelliano, Presuntuoso afán debe de estar muy cerquita de su centro, flotando en la misma atmósfera estrafalaria y tonificante en que lo hace la Vida misma. La de Johnson, digo. O bueno, la otra, la Vida en general, también.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those "popular" works of historical non-fiction which is written for the general reader, by an author out to get the general reader, not necessarily the academic crowd. This is not to say that Sisman's works have not been very highly regarded by the critics, they have been. But the very entertaining style with which he writes is much unlike the dense, heavily footnoted type of biography that tends to be produced by many writers, when the targets of their biographies are somewhat out of the popular mainstream. (Compare this work with, for example, Peter Ackroyd's biography of William Blake.)

Presumptuous Task is not really a full-blown biography, but it covers in detail the parts of Boswell's life that are of most interest. Most of the work concentrates on those year's of Bowell's life when he was moving in Samuel Johnson's London circle, taking constant notes of Johnson's utterances, habits and admirers; and the years after Johnson's death that Boswell, in failing health himself and starved for recognition, devoted to the writing of The Life of Johnson. This work finally brought Boswell the recognition he had longed for. The Life of Johnson was unique at the time for including direct quotations of its subject; Boswell had moved in Johnson's circle and taken all those notes.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Near the end of this engaging biography of a biography, Sisman quotes Samuel Johnson: “I write therefore I am alive.” The same could be said, even more so, for Boswell, and the primary virtue of Sisman’s book is his ability to show in dramatic and entertaining detail just how much B. created his own eccentric life through writing. Sisman’s goal is to prove that B. was a literary artist of great skill himself, and not the sychophantic “stenographer” and boorish “idiot” that more than a few of his contemporaries thought. Toward that end, S. provides a fasincating portrait of a writer at work under conditions, many of them of his own making, that most of us would find something less than conducive for achieving literary fame: a social calendar that would’ve made Truman Capote blanch; excessive drinking and whoring; working as a traveling lawyer; and prolonged bouts of severe melancholia that rendered him nearly paralyzed. But write he did, producing a personal journal thousands of pages long, in which he recorded seemingly every thought and sensation that ran through his mind, and every utterance that passed his ears. These journals provided the material for his famous bio of Johnson; but they also demonstrate B’s working methods in ways that contradict simplistic image of him as nothing more than faithful and diligent collector of table-talk. Instead, he made quick notes, often lists of unconnected quotes and details – “ a portable soup,” he called them -- which he would return to later, “when my mind was, as it were, impregnated with the Johnsonian ether, I could, with much more facility and exactness, carry in my memory and commit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and wit.” B. not only relied heavily on his memory, but acknowledged the subjective nature of that memory. If this sounds suspciously like methods of much creative nonfiction practiced today, with all its virtues and potential abuses, one might argue that B. was more of a forerunner for Norman Mailer than John McPhee, though he was also obsessive, a la McPhee, in collecting and verifying every scrap of information about J’s life he could find. Sisman also gives B. credit for reinventing the genre of biography. Before B’s work, Sisman explains, the purpose of a good biography was to provide a model of uplifting and noble character, confirming in the public’s mind an already existing image of a famous and revered figure like Johnson. B., on the other hand, insisted on presenting a more complex – more human – portrait of Johnson by including anecdotes and quotes that showed him in a less flattering light. What he wanted, most of all, was an “authentic” portrayal of his friend, a heroic figure sometimes burdened, like all of us, with his own baggage of petty and venal qualities. B. succeeded so well, S argues, as both a skilled writer and literary innovator that his critics admitted they found the book both engrossing in its description and voice, and appalling in its lack of respect for J’s private life. At this point, one can’t help but wonder to what degree B. created the conditions for our current plague of “celebrity” bios by the likes of Kitty Kelley, et al. (An unfair swipe at KK, possibly, since no less an august journal than The American Scholar, recently published a respectful profile of her.) Sadly, at the end of his life, B. was seen more as a boorish gossip than a literary star; his reputation did not begin to recover until the early 20th c., when scholars acquired his voluminous journals and letters and realized how much of a craftsman and innovator he really was.

A former teacher of mine, the poet Gary Gildner, once said, “All writing comes out of chaos.” For anyone interested in the messy process of creating art out of chaos, I think Sisman’s book provides a more insightful and far more entertaining model than many of the writing guides and self-help books available today. What really holds this book together, though, is the ever exasperating and aggravating, sometimes pathetic, sad and comical but also heroic character of James Boswell. S’s book, as it picks up momentum, reads more like a novel with a highly flawed but sympathetic protagonist who achieved greatness, however belatedly bestowed, both despite and because of his own eccentric but inspiring character. In a way, ironically, though he provides ample evidence of the kind of authentic tawdry details of B’s own life early critics assailed in his portrait of Johnson, Sisman also reaffirms the original goal of biography: to instruct, inspire and uplift.

(If I wanted to be picky, I might knock off a half star for Sisman’s determination to chronicle B’s every step in collecting documents from Johnson’s life, a strategy that rereates on the page his subject’s own overly scrupulous if obsessive desire to create an “authetic” portrait. A kind of homage, perhaps, rewarded with the virtue of capturing the authentic Boswell – assuming S. doesn’t take the same literary liberties that B. did with his subject.)

[Maggi LeDuc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know anything about Boswell or Johnson going into this book, but have come out greatly enjoying my learning journey.

[Robert Lukins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A guy wrote a book about a guy writing a book about a guy writing a book; it's much, much better than I just made it sound.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning, where Sisman rehearses the friendship of Johnson and Boswell, though necessary background, is a bit plodding. The book becomes more interesting once we get past this and move on to the making of Boswell's great work, The Life of Johnson, and the whole idea of writing the story of someone else's life, biography as a literary genre, and the relationship of the biographer to his subject. In particular, the book focuses on Boswell's painstaking labors to memorialize his great friend and mentor. In the process, Boswell wrote a new kind of biography, vivid and revealing. Sisman shows that the book, which is a masterpiece, was no accident. Sure, Boswell had a great subject in Johnson, but other contemporaries of Johnson's who knew him intimately and came out with biographical works soon after his death, produced books of passing interest only. Boswell's is a great literary work. And Sisman shows that it is very much the product of Boswell's own personality, passions, vanity, vulnerability, humanity, and open heart.

[Sarah W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book primarily out of an interest in the late 18th century and for that it was a valuable read. Better than some authors and historians, this book delivers an idea of the forces and complexities of 18th-century life, through the perspective of James Boswell, the author of the seminal biography The Life of Dr. Johnson. Had I been more familiar with Samuel Johnson or the biography previously, I likely would have gotten more out of this book. Still, I enjoyed learning about both Johnson and Boswell, their relationship, and Boswell's effort to produce the definitive biography of his mentor.

[Timothy Hargadon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a little late to the review party on this one. I buy most of my books are used from Thriftbooks and others.
But I thoroughly enjoyed this. I am a very minor fan of Boswell's. I'm not an academic just a fan of his times and his work.
I enjoyed the detail in this book although much of it I've read elsewhere. But the level of detail is such that I think Boswell would be pleased. To quote Boswell himself: “With how small a spec does a painter give life to an eye”. Detail is important. It helps us to focus in on the past.

[Charles Kerns · Rating 3 out of 5]

well written book that will not keep you up too late at night. You can put it down most anywhere. Interesting facts. Interesting lives. Interesting books, journals, letters, and 18th century life. And lots of Johnsonalia for those who want it.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars?

[T.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can only share Macaulay’s amazement that such a consummate ass as Boswell wrote a book so masterful as the Life of Johnson.

[Conrad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author gives a very thorough explanation as to how James Boswell came to write his famous ‘Life of Johnson’. For all his brilliance in memorizing, compiling and writing , Boswell was, nevertheless, a rather sad and pathetic figure constantly needing reassurance and buoying of spirit from his friends. He was a dissolute man given much to whoring and drinking. While he craved fame and fortune, he never seemed able to apply himself with any diligence in an effort to achieve those lofty goals, but rather seemed to feel that he was somehow entitled to such honors. He appeared to be a very entertaining and convivial dinner guest and drinking companion, but his inner life lacked peace and was plagued with melancholy. It appears that he was a disappointment to his father and lack of personal discipline seems to have carried on down through his lineage. “The sins of the father…” He finally achieved his goal of fame (if not fortune), more so posthumously than in his lifetime. His ‘Life of Johnson’ was the one thing he managed to achieve and complete in his abbreviated life of 50+ years, which was curtailed by venereal disease and alcoholism.
The author sums it up well by writing, “Though a fool in so many ways, Boswell had the wit to recognize the greatness in this sad, lonely, shabby, quick-tempered, warm-hearted, difficult man (Johnson).”
The amount of Boswellian letters, journals etc. that have been subsequently unearthed is quite staggering. He was a very troubled soul with a streak of brilliance, it would seem.

[Lars · Rating 5 out of 5]

I REALLY enjoyed this book. I was looking for the story behind a great literary work, and this book delivered that plus a peek into the 18th century, tons of funny and touching details about (a particular sphere of) the literati of that time, and this evolving drama of a man trying to square his laziness and other personal challenges with his great writing ability and his dreams of writing a great book for the ages. And he DOES IT, but that doesn't obviate tragedy for himself, his friends, and his family (including descendants).

The only downside is that it's not (always) like a thrill a minute, but it's rich and really thought-provoking. Are you a Boswell? Is that the worst thing? What are the alternatives? Etc.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Both this and the biography of Wordsworth and Coleridge by Sisman have some very useful and interesting information and are fairly readable, but they're both also somewhat repetitive and organized in a chronological but not chronological way that is, I think, needlessly confusing. Both could be edited down significantly without losing anything important, and one's overall sense of the subject's lives would be clearer if Sisman had either stuck to the chronology or created an internal organization that made backward and forward loops more coherent.

[David Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sisman asserts that the apparent transparency of the Boswell's biography was the product of conscious and carefully cultivated art, not, was assumed in his own lifetime or the succeeding century, the product of a fool with a good memory.

Ultimately, it belongs to that little genre that allows one to bask in the glow of a larger classic work (without the commitment the work itself demands). I do think of some of the big books that I have read as mental places where I have for a while dwelt; this sort of book is like taking a quick visit to a familiar neighborhood.

[Patrick]

Started reading this last week, as I prepare to read Boswell's Life Of Johnson. This book is about how Boswell went about writing that famous book, which is perhaps the most influential biography in the English language. I'm about a third of the way through this one, and am very pleased with it. The author, Adam Sisman, has done a fine job telling his story, and I am finding both Boswell and Johnson to be most interesting people. Can't wait to finish this!

[David]

I came away amazed that JB ever completed his Life of Johnson.

Many writers struggle against external barriers, but I have rarely heard of someone who made his literary task so difficult for himself. The wonder is not so much how excellent the biography is, but that it was brought to completion.

I also found the tale of how much Boswell material (diaries, letters, etc.) has been rediscovered in the 20th C. intriguing.

Well worth reading.

[MKO · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this first as an introduction to the biography that it seems like everyone who cares about books and reading should read (“a work that every educated man or woman was expected to read”—page 297).

"He had a sense that his life had not been lived until it had been recorded—or perhaps that experience was meaningless unless a record had been preserved.”

We should go back to the days of letters and journals. We really should.

[Amedeo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good account of the rivalries among those who wanted to be the principal biographer of Dr. Johnson and what motivataed each of them. We also have a good picture of Bozzy at his most lovable and most pathetic and of how he fought depression his whole life. Great research and very well told and a pleasure to read for anyone interested in James Boswell or his magnum opus.

[Gerard Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful evocation of the late 18th century and a splendid portrait of a man (Boswell) who spent a lot of his life trying to write a portrait of another man (Johnson).
Boswell comes across as gossipy, silly, vain but somehow still we are always on his side.
Maybe this is due to the sympathic treatment he gets from Sisman who nevertheless doesnt shy away from Boswell's seedier side.

[Dionysius the Areopagite]

This is a compact, breezy book. So moving, in fact, that it has convinced me at last to pick up the unabridged Life of Johnson, before I was able to finish. Someday I will read more on and by Boswell. For now I have to read his Great Book.

[Rose Zamy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad ending for a talented, unhyappy, disturbed man. But now I find I want to read his work on Johnson. . . hopefully with a better appreciation for how he assembled the work.

[Peter Nowakowski]

Very interesting never boring

[Simon Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of fun to be had with Boswell, whether at his worst or best. Sisman makes a fine case for his rehabilitation as a writer.