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8 unusual facts about James Boswell


Ayton, Scottish Borders

The Scottish diarist and author James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson passed through Ayton on his journey to London on 15 November 1762.

Corriechatachan

Notable visitors included Thomas Pennant, in the course of the travels that resulted in the publication of A Tour of Scotland in 1769, and Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, on their tour of the Highlands.

Cullen, Moray

According to James Boswell, writing in The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, the pair considered that Cullen had "a comfortable appearance, though but a very small town, and the houses mostly poor buildings".

Lillian de la Torre

Her most popular works were the Dr. Sam: Johnson, Detector series of 33 detective stories that cast 18th century literary figures Samuel Johnson and James Boswell into Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson roles.

London Journal

James Boswell's London Journal is a published version of the daily journal he kept between the years 1762 and 1763 while in London.

Northern Circuit

There have been other Circuiteers who have attained fame outside the law – the author John Buchan, W.S. Gilbert and James Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Richard Altick

One of Altick's most enduringly popular books was written during his first years at Ohio State: The Scholar Adventurers (1950), a title he coined to describe the literary detectives whose work was resulting in new discoveries about James Boswell, Christopher Marlowe, and other major figures in English literature.

Steven Millhauser

This novel, about a precocious writer whose career ends abruptly with his death at age eleven, features the fictional Jeffrey Cartwright playing Boswell to Edwin's Johnson.


Alexander Druzhinin

He translated three of Shakespeare's plays; King Lear, Coriolanus and Richard III; he published a series of essays entitled Boswell and Johnson, about English life in the eighteenth century; and he wrote a life of George Crabbe which included numerous extracts from his poetry.

Andrew Crosbie

An office-bearer ('Assassin') of The Poker Club, and a friend of Boswell and Johnson, Crosbie was the basis of the character Councillor Pleydell in Sir Walter Scotts's novel Guy Mannering.

Gunby Hall

The Hall contains significant collections of art, furniture, porcelain and silver including original pieces by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edward Lear, William Morris, Lord Tennyson, William Holman Hunt, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Sheraton and Lucio Rannuci.

Hester Thrale

Due to her husband's financial status, she was able to enter London society, as a result of which she met Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Bishop Thomas Percy, Oliver Goldsmith and other literary figures, including the young Fanny Burney, whom she took with her to Gay Street, Bath.

John Stafford Smith

He was elected as a member of the select Anacreontic Society which boasted amongst its membership such persons as Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Henry Purcell.

Paul Hogarth

As an illustrator he studied under James Boswell, and worked with a number of eminent authors, including Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Brendan Behan, Lawrence Durrell, and William Golding.

Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum

Personal items include Johnson's armchair, tea set, breakfast table and portable writing desk, David Garrick's walking stick and a bookcase belonging to James Boswell.

Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie

James Boswell borrowed five guineas from Erskine on 20 October 1762, and on 26 May 1763 took him on a visit to Lord Eglinton's in London, where the overture the Earl composed for the popular pastiche The Maid of the Mill (at Covent Garden in 1765) became exceptionally popular.


see also

William Temple

William Johnson Temple (1739–1796) English cleric and essayist, a correspondent of James Boswell