Boswell, James ___ 1740-1795 ___ British ___ writer, lawyer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Boswell was born in Edinburgh into a strict family, his father being a lawyer and eventually a senior judge, and his mother a Calvinist. He studied at Edinburgh and Glasgow universities before escaping to London, where he met Samuel Johnson with whom he kept a close association until Johnson's death. In 1763, he moved to Utrecht to continue studying law, but soon went off on a Grand Tour to Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France. On his way he met Voltaire and Rousseau. It was Rousseau who persuaded Boswell of Corsica's right to liberty from Genoa, and this idea underpinned his first successful book, a diary of his time on the island. Boswell, it is reported, had an excellent memory, which helped in keeping such a fine journal for most of his life; like Pepys, he was also highly charged sexually. In 1766, he moved back to Edinburgh, where he practised law for the next 20 years. In 1769, he married his first cousin, Margaret Montgomerie, and they had seven children before she died in 1789. In 1773, Boswell toured the Scottish Hebrides with Johnson, and his diary again served as the basis for another famous travel book. Boswell also wrote for magazines, and, after the death of his friend, published 'The Life of Samuel Johnson', which was, and still is, hailed as a great work.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1762-1794 ___ literary religious travel people law self health love/sex Holland Germany Switzerland France Scotland

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
a few pages
etext

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
The Lewis Walpole Library - some diaries

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
An Account of Corsica: The Journal of a Tour of that Island, and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Heart of Boswell: Six Journals in One Volume
 

May 2005, September 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.