James Boswell
(1740–1795)

Not until the twentieth century did James Boswell rise from the fringes of literary history to take his place as perhaps the greatest biographer in English literature. Best known for his biography of Samuel Johnson, Boswell wrote with vigor, training his eyes now on the picturesque, now on the grotesque.

Born into an aristocratic family in Edinburgh, Scotland, Boswell was educated at the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Utrecht. Although he received his degree in law and was admitted to the bar in both Scotland and England, Boswell's true passion was literature. His father, a prominent judge, was angered by what he saw as his son's "shallow" values. The extremely sensitive young Boswell interpreted this dissatisfaction as rejection, which led in turn to feelings of inferiority. In an effort to overcome his low self-esteem and at the same time find a suitable father figure, Boswell became a celebrity chaser, seeking out the acquaintanceship of the great men and women of his day. To his credit, many of them became his lifelong friends.

Among these friends was Samuel Johnson, who Boswell met while visiting London in 1763. After his acceptance into the prestigious Literary Club, Boswell devoted 30 years to compiling detailed records of Johnson's activities and conversations. From these assorted bits and pieces he distilled his famous work, The Life of Samuel Johnson, a precise yet wonderfully intimate portrait of the colorful poet. "The great art of biography," Boswell wrote, "is to keep the person whose life we are giving always in the reader's view." This he does by depicting Johnson variously as "rhinoceros, in kind of good humoured growl" and as "blowing out his breath like a whale" following an argument.

In addition to his portrait of Johnson, Boswell wrote numerous personal journals. An Account of Corsica (1768) is a sympathetic report of his meeting with the Corsican patriot Paoli and of Corsica's struggle for independence. His Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides (1785), published after Johnson's death, tells of the trip he made with the sage of Scotland.

During his lifetime, Boswell's popularity was stifled by the biting criticism leveled at his work by the poet Thomas Gray, who caustically noted that "any fool may write a valuable book by chance, if he will only tell what he heard or saw…." It is only since the 1920s, in fact, when a batch of Boswell's private papers were discovered in Malahide Castle, that the reading public has had any real awareness of this often rowdy, often vain young gentleman who gave the world its closest look at Samuel Johnson.

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