James Boswell
Biographer
James Boswell was an author and diarist who was born in Edinburgh in Scotland on October 29, 1740. He was a lawyer by profession and also held the title 9th Laird of Auchinleck. Boswell's greatest claim to fame is perhaps the biography of Samuel Johnson entitled Life of Johnson, which was published in 1791. For many years of his life though, Boswell wrote and kept many meticulous and candid journals which detailed his associations with many illustrious figures of the day, many of whom were members of The Club, such as Lord Monboddo, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith and Joshua Reynolds.
These journals, which were only brought to literary attention in the 1920s, vividly described Boswell's extensive tour of Europe when he was still a young man and later, his tour of Scotland where Samuel Johnson accompanied him. It is these journals that would later cause the name Boswell to be adopted in the English language as a word to mean a companion or observer.
Boswell was born the eldest son to the 8th Laird of Auchinleck Alexander Boswell who was a judge and to Euphemia Erskine the Lady Auchinleck. Upon the death of his father, James became the heir to the Auchinleck estate in Ayrshire. Boswell's mother was a devout Calvinist and by many accounts, his father was a somewhat cold and distant man.
James Boswell had always been a somewhat fragile child ever since birth in addition to being afflicted with a sort of nervous disorder. In fact, this condition would recur sporadically over the years and throughout many periods in his life he would suffer from severe bouts of depression.
One such period of illness and depression occurred when Boswell was attending the University of Edinburgh. Some good came out of this affliction however as after Boswell recovered from this illness, he had grown out of his earlier fragile condition and appeared to be in good health.
Having been born near St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Boswell first attended James Mundell's Academy but would afterwards be schooled by a succession of private tutors before being sent to Edinburgh University when he was thirteen years old in order to study law. When he was nineteen, he began attending classes at the University of Glasgow and it was then that he converted to Catholicism and started to study to become a monk, much to his father's dismay.
Boswell ran off to London to escape his father's rage and there lived a life of carefree leisure for three years, before returning to Edinburgh University. This time his performance was satisfactory enough for his father and he allowed Boswell to return to London. This was the time when he would come to make the acquaintance of Samuel Johnson.
The Life of Johnson biography, which is the source of much of Boswell's reputation, is a groundbreaking pierce of literature in that it deviated from the normally dry and clinical autobiographies of the day. The personal details and transcripts of actual conversations were elements that were unheard of then and this work stands as a high point in English literature to this day.
Original Authors: Doods Pangburn
Edit Update Authors: RPN
Updated On: 24/04/2007
