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Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book.'Peter Ackroyd, from the ForewordIn 1762 James Boswell, then twenty-two years old, left Edinburgh for London. The famous Journal he kept during the next nine months is an intimate account of his encounters with the high-life and the low-life in London. Frank and confessional as a personal portrait of the young Boswell, the Journal is also revealing as a vivid portrayal of life in eighteenth-century London. This new edition includes a Foreword by Peter Ackroyd, which discusses Boswell's life and achievement.Key FeaturesFeatures a new Foreword by Peter Ackroyd, author of London: The BiographyThis edition of Boswell's classic text has long been recognised as THE authoritative versionEdited by the renowned Boswell expert, the late Frederick A. PottleIncludes a first-class introduction and informative notes throughout… (more)
User reviews
A must read for any Boswell fan,and a good read for anyone interested in late 18th century London society.
Os.
Boswell is, as always, gloriously human and delightfully inconsistent. He's one of the few people in English literature who could, without seeming either priggish or hypocritical, recall with one hand up a woman's skirt that it's Sunday afternoon and there's still time to get to church. His descriptions of his various sexual adventures (which ensured this book an unusually large print-run for a scholarly text when it appeared in 1950) have an element of youthful bravado about them: the cool way he dismisses an encounter with a prostitute as we might a dinner in an unmemorable restaurant is almost certainly assumed for the benefit of the friend for whom he's writing this. But the constant assertions that he's never going to do it again are pure Boswell.
Pottle points out in his introduction that it's pure chance that the journal has such a satisfying narrative arc to it: whilst we could expect that our hero arrives in London, has adventures, is frustrated in his ambitions, and eventually has to move on elsewhere, the Big Moment when Boswell meets Johnson might so easily never have happened, or have happened too soon. As it is, they meet at a moment when Boswell's immediate future is already decided, and their friendship is only just beginning when they have to part for a considerable time. Exactly the point where you feel Volume 1 should end...
The journal is of some psychological interest, in as much as it gives a comprehensive picture of Boswell's mental state, but most of all it is entertaining and of immense historical value as we get first hand descriptions of famous historical characters and events.
I really can't recommend this book enough...
He suggests to a friend that the world would be much better is "venereal delight" were permitted only to the virtuous, because priests could then "incite the Audience to Goodness by warmly and lusciously setting before their imaginations the transports of amorous Joy." That is right. Boswell thinks all would be well if only priests were also pornographers.
He fails to go out when his barber is sick, apparently being incapable of shaving himself. He sees another prostitute and describes her. He eats out. His friends are witty. And then he meets Jonson--which gives birth to a great book, of course. But after reading just the first volume of his journal, I'm pretty convinced that Boswell was both a more enjoyable man than Jonson, and, dare I say it, a vastly superior writer.
I can recommend this book to anyone who likes history or Life of Johnson. It is worth your time.
A must read for any Boswell fan,and a good read for anyone interested in late 18th century London society.
Os.
I enjoyed the insights into the culture and life of London during that period of time. Also enjoyed the introduction notes which explained who the people are and some of the more obscure phrases, and the mentions of the various famous individuals who crossed paths with him. I adore the end pages which are a map of London in the 1760s. This would probably be great for someone who is very interested the times or the people of the times, but I couldn't handle the vanity and self-satisfied conceit which oozed through it all.
Boswell presents himself as a determined individual who won't give up in pursuing his dream of joining a
He's honest too about his need for sex - the Louisa (aka Mrs. Lewis) episode reveals him as a cad after he is unwontedly visited by "Signor Gonorrhoea".
"What! thought I , can this beautiful, this sensible and this agreeable woman be so sadly defiled? Can corruption lodge beneath so fair a form?.... No, it is impossible. I have just got a gleet by irritating the parts too much with excessive venery."
Wonderful Eighteenth Century!!
Go the Boss.
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