THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
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.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1762-1794 ___ literary religious
travel people law self health love/sex Holland Germany Switzerland France
Scotland
WEB TEXT LINKS
Journal
of a tour to the Hebrides
extract
- visit to Ferney
list of people
mentioned
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
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
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. |