Boswell James - A journey to the western islands of Scotland. The journal of a tour to the Hebrides

A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND

AND

THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES

SAMUEL JOHNSON (170984) was born in Lichfield and educated at Lichfield Grammar School and Pembroke College, Oxford. A notable moral essayist, critic, poet and lexicographer, Johnsons powerful personality and his long career made him the dominating literary figure of the century. He met Boswell in 1763 and the latter became his devoted follower; ten years later, at the respective ages of sixty-three and thirty-two, they began their tour of Scotland. Johnsons account of his journey is a superb illustration of his wisdom, his prejudices and the range of his interests.

JAMES BOSWELL (174095) was born in Edinburgh and studied law at Edinburgh University and at Utrecht. At the insistence of his domineering father he practised as an advocate, but he was greatly interested in politics and writing. He travelled in Europe during 17656 and made the acquaintance of Voltaire and Rousseau, and developed an interest in Corsican affairs. His Account of Corsica (1768) and a less successful sequel (1769) brought him the fame he so desired. Boswell is best remembered for his masterly biography of Johnson and as Peter Levi states in the introduction, we probably owe the Life of Johnson as well as this slighter sketch to that surprising expedition of theirs so late in the season, between August and November, 1773.

PETER LEVI, classical scholar, archaeologist and poet, was born in 1931. He translated The Psalms and Pausanias Guide to Greece for Penguin Classics, as well as a collection of Yevtushenko (with R. Milner-Gulland) for the Penguin Modern Poets. He also edited The Penguin Book of English Christian Verse. He wrote more than sixty books, including The Light Garden of the Angel King, an account of his travels in Afghanistan; A Bottle in the Shade; The Penguin History of Greek Literature; and biographies of Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Milton and Edward Lear. Peter Levi was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 1989. He died on 1 February 2000.

Samuel Johnson

James Boswell

Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Peter Levi

Penguin Books

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Johnsons Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
first published in 1775
Boswells Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson LL.D.
first published in 1786
Published in Penguin Classics 1984
21

Introduction and notes copyright Peter Levi, 1984
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EISBN: 9780141904351

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