Did you know?

For most of his adult life Boswell was better known for his "Account of Corsica", which lead to the sobriquet Corsica Boswell, than for his friendship with Dr. Johnson.

Biographies

James Boswell mentioned thousands of people in his extensive journals and other writings. Read about an ever increasing number of those people, and about their relationship with Boswell, in our biographies section.

Literature

In our literature section you can read about the numerous books published by Boswell in his own lifetime, and about more than 40 other books about or related to Boswell published since his death in 1795.

Auchinleck House, Ayrshire

Location in Boswell's time:

Picture of Auchinleck House (May 2013) The present-day Auchinleck House was built ca. 1758-60 by Alexander Boswell, replacing what became known as the Auchinleck Old Place, which was built in 1612. Most remains of an even older castle on the lands had already disappeared by then.

The architecture of the house itself borrows heavily from the nearby Dumfries House, which was built just a few years earlier by the Earl of Dumfries. However, being of more limited means that his neighbour, Alexander (then known as Lord Auchinleck, due to his position as a judge in the Court of Sessions) opted for a smaller solution. The architect of Auchinleck House is not known, and it has been speculated that Lord Auchinleck simply told a builder to build a smaller version of Dumfries House, with a more compressed main building and without any wings. Even so, Auchinleck House did contain some advanced features for its day, including some very modern plumbing, as was later discovered when the house was renovated in the late 20th century.

The location today:

Auchinleck House was uninhabited and not taken care of for a few decades until in 1986 it was turned over to the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (SHBT) by a descendant of the 18th century Boswells. The SHBT did some renovations on the building, before in 1999 Auchinleck House was sold to the Landmark Trust.

It has since been thoroughly renovated and is now open both for visiting and for staying, accomodating up to thirteen guests at a time.

Association with Boswell:

Contrary to what was thought by some of Boswell's early biographers, he was almost certainly not born at Auchinleck, which was still in the possession of his grandfather in 1740, but in his father's house in Edinburgh. Boswell's father became the 8th Laird of Auchinleck in 1749, and Boswell himself became the 9th Laird in 1782. Boswell was enormously fond of the place and the surrounding lands, as is documented in his journal and by his surviving correspondence with overseers James Bruce and Andrew Gibb.