"We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed", reads one of the most oft-quoted passages from Boswell's Life of Johnson.
For the first time in years, a new significant finding of Boswell material has been made, with the discovery at the Bodleian library of Boswell's own 39 page draft for a dictionary of the Scots language, containing about 800 Scots words and phrases.
The Boswell Museum and Mausoleum Trust has announced the inaugural Boswell Book Festival which is to take place on the grounds of Auchinleck House on May 20 - 22, 2011.
Tonight sees the opening of a new play, A Dish of Tea with Doctor Johnson, based on writings of James Boswell.
This Christmas on TV you can watch Rory McGrath, Dara O’Briain and Griff Rhys-Jones go in Boswell and Johnson's footsteps on a ten-day tour through the Scottish Highlands all the way out to the Hebrides.
The first episode will be shown on BBC 2 on December 27, 2010, at 8.00 pm. The second episode will be shown on December 30 at 8:00 pm.
The middle of May is, I think, always an emotional time for Boswellians. On May 16 we celebrate the joyous occasion of the first meeting between James Boswell and Samuel Johnson in 1763 - and just a few days later we mourn the loss of Boswell himself, on the anniversary of his death in London on May 19, 1795.
How do you celebrate and commemorate those very significant dates?
Today is biographer's day, the 247th anniversary of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson's first meeting, which took place on this day in 1763 at Thomas Davies' bookshop near Covent Garden, London.
Charles Ryskamp, former professor of literature at Princeton, director of the Morgan Library and later of the Frick Collection died on Friday, March 26, 2010, at the age of 81.
