James Boswell

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Boswell by Joshua Reynolds 1785
James Boswell by George Willison in Rome 1765, Scottish National Gallery .

James Boswell (born October 29, 1740 in Edinburgh , † May 19, 1795 in London ) was a Scottish writer and lawyer. With the biography of his friend Samuel Johnson he created one of the most important biographical works in English literature . He is also known as a travel writer.

Life

origin

Boswell was the eldest son of the lawyer and future judge Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, and later inherited his estate at Auchinleck House near Ochiltree in Ayrshire .

Education

Since he did not like going to school, he was taught by private tutors. He studied from 1753 at the University of Edinburgh . In 1759 he continued his studies at the University of Glasgow , including with Adam Smith .

A period of insubordination towards his father, during which he fled to London for several months, ended with the forced continuation of his law studies in Edinburgh. In 1762 he took his oral exam and his father allowed him to return to London. There he met and befriended Samuel Johnson for the first time on May 16, 1763, although Johnson had a prejudice against Scots.

In the same year he continued his law studies in Utrecht with Christiaan Hendrik Pots and fell in love with Isabelle de Charrière .

Travel to other European countries

In 1764 he traveled through Germany and Switzerland, where he met Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire . On his Grand Tour he also visited other European countries such as Italy (Rome) and Corsica, where he met Pasquale Paoli , the then well-known Corsican patriot and fighter for Corsica's independence from Genoa. He also later supported the Corsicans' struggle for freedom, for example during the French invasion of the island in 1768. His travel diaries were later published.

Return to Great Britain

In 1766 he returned to London (accompanied by his lover Marie-Thérèse Levasseur ) and took his last law exam in Edinburgh, after which he practiced as a lawyer in Edinburgh for a decade.

Literary success

During this time he visited London regularly to take part in the literary life in the circle around Samuel Johnson. In Edinburgh he was friends with David Hume . With his book about Corsica in 1768 and later the trip to the Hebrides, he himself also had literary success. In 1782, after the death of his father, he became the heir and became the 9th Laird of Auchinleck. After Samuel Johnson's death in 1784, he moved to London, but had little success there as a lawyer. A political career also failed because he did not find sufficient support for a candidacy in the lower house. He turned back to writing and had success with his biography of Samuel Johnson ( 1791 ). Through his biography of Johnson, Boswell became as famous in the English-speaking world as Eckermann was in German for his conversations with Goethe.

Marriage, family, health

In 1769 he married his cousin Margaret Montgomerie, who died of tuberculosis in 1789, and with whom he had four sons and three daughters. He had numerous affairs and at least two children out of wedlock.

He was described by contemporaries as kind-hearted, humorous and personable, but became increasingly addicted to gambling and alcohol (which, along with several sexually transmitted diseases, ruined his health in the last few years of his life) and was a victim of mood swings and intermittent depression.

Boswell's third son, James Boswell jr. (1778–1822), is the editor of the so-called “Third Variorum” in 1821 of the works of Shakespeare.

Quotes

"Do not despise the writer who had such a keen eye for amusing events, who valued ingenious formulations and had the rare talent to reproduce the atmosphere of a scene and the liveliness of a conversation."

- W. Somerset Maugham : Books and you , p. 48

"Homer is not more certain than the first among the heroic poets, Shakespeare not the first among the playwrights, Demosthenes the first among the speakers, than Boswell is the first among the biographers."

- Thomas Babington Macaulay

Works

Account of Corsica , 1768

Fonts

  • 1768: An Account of Corsica, The Journal of a Tour to that Island; And Memoirs of Pascal Paoli. Illustrated with a New and Accurate Map of Corsica. The Second Edition . London: Edward and Charles Dilly ( Google )
    • German edition 1769: Jacob Boswells, Esq., Historical-geographical description of Corsica along with many important news and anecdotes from Pascal Paoli the general of the Corsica. Translated from English after the second edition and explained with a new and complete map of Corsica. Improved output . Leipzig: Caspar Fritsch ( Google )
    • Current German edition: Description of Corsica . hochufer.com, Hannover 2010, ISBN 978-3-941513-13-6 . This new edition offers a complete, to the letter reproduction of the first German translation (1768/69).
  • 1785: The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Containing Some Poetical Pieces by Dr. Johnson, relative to the Tour, and never before published; A Series of this Conversation, Literary Anecdotes, and Opinions of Men and Books: with an Authentick Account of the Distresses and Escape of the Grandson of King James II. In the Year 1746 . London: Henry Baldwin ( Google )
    • German edition 1787: Diary of a trip to the Hebridean Islands with Doctor Samuel Johnson. Translated from English after the second edition. Lübeck: Christian Gottfried Donatius ( Google )
  • 1791: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprehending an Account of his Studies and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order; a Series of his Epistolary Correspondence and Conversation with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of his Composition Never Before Published (…). 2 volumes. London: Henry Baldwin / Charles Dilly (Google: Volume I - Volume II )
    • Current German edition: Dr. Samuel Johnson. Life and opinions . Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 2002 ISBN 3-257-20786-7
  • 1818 (posthumously): The Table Talk of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprising his Most Interesting Remarks and Observations. Collected by James Boswell, Esq. 2 volumes. J. Coxhead, London (Google: Volume I - Volume II ) [compiled from earlier writings, v. a. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides ]

Left behind works, diaries and letters

  • Letters of James Boswell, Addressed to the Rev. WJ Temple. Now First Published from the Original Mss. With an Introduction and Notes . London: Richard Bentley 1857 ( Google )

His diaries and notes, discovered in a castle near Dublin in the 1920s, came to Yale University via the collector Ralph H. Isham and were published by Yale University in thirteen volumes from 1950 to 1989 (starting with the London Journal 1762/63) ( Editors Frederick Pottle, Frank Brady). The diaries go from the beginning of the 1760s until shortly before his death. The correspondence was also published. A new edition has been published by University Press Edinburgh since the 1990s.

  • Boswell's London Journal 1762-1763 . Second edition . Edited by Frederick A. Pottle. Preface by Peter Ackroyd. UP, Edinburgh 2004
  • The Journals of James Boswell, 1762-1795, selected and introduced by John Wain . Yale UP, New Haven 1991
  • Boswell on the Grand Tour. Germany and Switzerland 1764. Edited by Frederick A. Pottle. McGraw-Hill, New York - Toronto 1953 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )
    • German edition: Boswell's Great Journey. Germany and Switzerland 1764 . Diana Verlag, Stuttgart - Konstanz 1955
    • New edition: James Boswell: The Journal of His German and Swiss Travels, 1764 . Edited by Marlies Danziger. UP, Edinburgh 2008 (= The Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell - Research Edition. Journal: Volume 1)
  • The Correspondence and Other Papers of James Boswell Relating to the Making of the Life of Johnson . Edited by Marshall Waingrow. UP, Edinburgh 2001 (= The Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell - Research Edition. Correspondence: Volume 2)
  • The Correspondence of James Boswell with James Bruce and Andrew Gibb, Overseers of the Auchinleck Estate . Edited by Nellie Pottle Hankins and John Strawhorn. UP, Edinburgh 1998 (= The Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell - Research Edition. Correspondence: Volume 8)
  • The General Correspondence of James Boswell, 1757-1763 . Edited by David Hankins and James J. Caudle. UP, Edinburgh 2006 (= The Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell - Research Edition. Correspondence: Volume 9)
  • The General Correspondence of James Boswell, 1766–1769. Volume 1: 1766-1767 . Edited by Richard C. Cole. UP, Edinburgh 1993 (= The Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell )
  • The General Correspondence of James Boswell, 1766–1769. Volume 2: 1768-1769 . Edited by Richard C. Cole. UP, Edinburgh 1997 (= The Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell )

Boswell also wrote a column in The London Magazine from 1777 to 1783 under the pen name The Hypochondriack , published by Margery Bailey in 1928 and 1951 ( Boswell's Column , London, William Kimber).

literature

  • Frederick Pottle: James Boswell. The earlier years 1740–1769 . McGraw Hill, 1966, 1985
  • Frank Brady: James Boswell. The later years 1769-1795 . McGraw Hill, 1984
  • Iain Finlayson: The Moth and the Candle. A Life of James Boswell . Constable, London 1984
  • Lyle Larsen (Ed.): James Boswell as his Contemporaries Saw Him . Fairleigh Dickinson UP, Madison 2008
  • Peter Martin: A life of James Boswell . Yale University Press / Weidenfels & Nicholson, London 1999, 2002
  • DB Wyndham-Lewis: The Hooded Hawk or The Case of Mr. Boswell . Longmans, Green and Co., 1947
  • Boswell, James . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 297 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ W. Somerset Maugham : Books and you: A small personal story of world literature , page 46 (Zurich 2006)
  2. ↑ Boswell recorded their first conversation with one another in his Life of Johnson. Boswell knew Johnson's dislike of the Scots and wanted to hide this at first, but a friend thwarted him. Boswell: Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it . Johnson That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help
  3. ↑ David Hume in a letter to the Countess von Bouflers January 12, 1766: a young gentleman very good-humored, very agreeable, and very mad , Boswell.info
  4. ↑ Michael Dobson, Stanley Wells: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare . OUP, 2001, p. 52.
  5. ↑ Macaulay: Essay on Boswell's Life of Johnson. Literally The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great - a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers .
  6. ↑ First published in Yale UP, New Haven 1950.
  7. ↑ 1897-1987. Professor at Yale University. Editor of the Boswell Papers
  8. ↑ 1922–1986. Prof. at the City University of New York. Editor of the Boswell Papers
personal data
SURNAME Boswell, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish writer and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1740
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1795
Place of death London