James Boswell (1740-1795), 9th Laird of Auchinleck - Scottish advocate, diarist, journalist, and author of An Account of Corsica (1768), The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), and The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791).
Born in Edinburgh on October 29, 1740, James Boswell was the eldest son of the Scottish advocate and judge Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck (1707-1782), and Euphemia Erskine (1718-1766). Known during his lifetime first as "Corsica Boswell" after his 1768 book championing General Pasquale Paoli and the Corsican republic, and subsequently as the biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), Boswell also kept one of the most extensive and candid private journals in European literature.
Recovered in a series of 20th-century archival discoveries at Malahide Castle near Dublin and Fettercairn House in Scotland, and acquired by Yale University in 1949-1950, Boswell's private journals and correspondence record his encounters with monarchs, statesmen, philosophers, writers, and ordinary men and women across Britain and continental Europe during the second half of the 18th century.
Early Life and Education (1740-1762)
Heir to the family estate of Auchinleck in Ayrshire, established in 1504 when King James IV granted the barony to Thomas Boswell, James Boswell was educated first at James Mundell's academy in Edinburgh and by domestic tutors including Joseph Ferguson and John Dun. Between 1753 and 1758 he attended the University of Edinburgh, where he formed lifelong friendships with John Johnston of Grange and William Johnson Temple. In 1759 he matriculated at the University of Glasgow, attending the lectures of Adam Smith on moral philosophy and rhetoric.
Although his father pressed him to prepare for the Scottish bar, the young Boswell was drawn to the theatre, poetry, and London society. During a first runaway visit to London in the spring of 1760, he briefly converted to Roman Catholicism before being introduced by Alexander Montgomerie, 10th Earl of Eglinton, to the fashionable and literary circles of the capital. After passing his examination in civil law at Edinburgh in July 1762, he secured his father's permission to return to London to seek a commission in the Foot Guards.
The London Journal and First Meeting with Samuel Johnson (1762-1763)
Boswell arrived in London in November 1762 and took lodgings in Downing Street. Over the next nine months he composed the manuscript later published as Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763 (1950), chronicling his unsuccessful pursuit of a Guards commission, his theatrical friendships with David Garrick and Thomas Sheridan, and his affair with the Covent Garden actress Louisa (Anne Lewis).
On May 16, 1763, while drinking tea in the back parlour of the bookseller Thomas Davies at 8 Russell Street, Covent Garden, Boswell met Dr. Samuel Johnson for the first time. Despite Johnson's initial rebuffs of Boswell's apologies for his Scottish birth, the two men formed a warm attachment before Boswell departed from Harwich for the Netherlands in August 1763, accompanied to the coast by Johnson himself.
Utrecht, the Grand Tour, and Corsica (1763-1766)
Complying with a compromise reached with Lord Auchinleck, Boswell spent the winter of 1763-1764 studying civil law at the University of Utrecht under Professor Trotz (Boswell in Holland, 1763-1764), where he courted the Dutch writer Isabelle de Charrière ("Zélide"). In June 1764 he set out with the exiled Jacobite Earl Marischal, George Keith, on an extended Grand Tour through the German princely courts, visiting Brunswick, Hanover, Berlin, Potsdam, Dessau, Dresden, Leipzig, Gotha, Kassel, Mannheim, and Karlsruhe (Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and Switzerland, 1764).
Entering Switzerland in December 1764, Boswell secured multiple interviews with Jean-Jacques Rousseau at Môtiers and stayed with Voltaire at Ferney over Christmas. After travelling through Italy in 1765, visiting Turin, Rome, Naples, Venice, Florence, and Siena, and forming a close friendship with Lord Mountstuart (Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France, 1765-1766), Boswell sailed to Corsica in October 1765. Armed with a passport from Rousseau, he travelled inland to Sollacarò, where he spent a week with the Corsican leader General Pasquale Paoli. Returning to Britain via Paris in early 1766 (escorting Rousseau's companion Thérèse Le Vasseur across the Channel), he published An Account of Corsica, The Journal of a Tour to That Island; and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli in February 1768. The book was an immediate international success, running through three British editions and translated into French, German, Dutch, and Italian.
Edinburgh Advocate, Marriage, and Laird of Auchinleck (1766-1785)
Admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh in July 1766, Boswell practised for twenty years in the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary (Boswell for the Defence, 1769-1774), taking part in the celebrated Douglas Cause (Dorando, A Spanish Tale, 1767) and defending numerous poor and capital clients, including the sheep-stealer John Reid. On November 25, 1769, he married his first cousin Margaret Montgomerie (c. 1738-1789); their surviving children were Veronica (1773-1795), Euphemia (1774-c. 1834), Alexander (1775-1822, later Sir Alexander Boswell, 1st Baronet), James (1778-1822, Shakespearean scholar), and Elizabeth (1780-1814).
While resident in Edinburgh, Boswell visited London nearly every spring when the Scottish courts were in recess, dining with Johnson and being elected to The Literary Club in April 1773 alongside Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and David Garrick. From August to November 1773, Boswell persuaded the sixty-four-year-old Johnson to undertake an eighty-three-day journey through the Scottish Highlands and Inner Hebrides. Between November 1777 and August 1783, Boswell also contributed seventy monthly essays to The London Magazine under the pseudonym The Hypochondriack. Upon the death of his father on August 30, 1782, he succeeded as 9th Laird of Auchinleck (Boswell, Laird of Auchinleck, 1778-1782).
London Bar, Tour to the Hebrides, and The Life of Johnson (1785-1795)
Following Samuel Johnson's death on December 13, 1784, Boswell worked closely with the Irish scholar Edmond Malone to prepare The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., published in October 1785. In 1786 Boswell was called to the English Bar at the Inner Temple and moved his household to London (Boswell: The English Experiment, 1785-1789), serving from 1788 to 1790 as Recorder of Carlisle under the patronage of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale.
After the death of his wife Margaret from tuberculosis at Auchinleck in June 1789, Boswell sustained himself through the rigorous labour of assembling, verifying, and revising his monumental biography of Johnson with Malone's daily editorial assistance (Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789-1795). Published in two quarto volumes on May 16, 1791, the twenty-eighth anniversary of their first meeting, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. was immediately recognized as a landmark in the history of biography. A second, expanded three-volume octavo edition appeared in July 1793, and Boswell was working with Malone on the third edition when he fell fatally ill at a meeting of the Literary Club in April 1795. He died at his house at 122 Great Portland Street, London, on May 19, 1795, aged fifty-four, and was buried in the family vault at Auchinleck.
Discovery and Publication of the Boswell Papers
For more than a century after his death, it was widely believed that Boswell's manuscripts had been destroyed by his executors. In fact, his literary executors (Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, William Johnson Temple, and Edmond Malone) had left the bulk of the papers intact at Auchinleck. Between 1927 and 1940, the American collector Lt.-Col. Ralph Heyward Isham acquired multiple caches of manuscripts inherited by Boswell's great-great-grandson Lord Talbot de Malahide at Malahide Castle in Ireland, while a separate large archive was discovered in 1930-1931 by Professor Claude Colleer Abbott among the papers of Sir William Forbes at Fettercairn House in Kincardineshire (The Treasure of Auchinleck; Pride and Negligence). Unified at Yale University in 1949-1950 under the founding general editorship of Frederick A. Pottle, these papers form the basis of the thirteen-volume Yale Trade Edition (1950-1989) and the ongoing Yale Research Edition.
Chronological Timeline of James Boswell's Life
If you would like to explore the nearly 600 contemporaries and correspondents whom Boswell met during his life, you can browse our biographical index.
October 29, 1740: James Boswell is born in Edinburgh, the eldest son of advocate, later judge, Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, and Euphemia Erskine.
1753-1758: Attends the University of Edinburgh, where he meets fellow students John Johnston and William Johnson Temple, both of whom become lifelong friends and correspondents.
1759-1760: Studies moral philosophy and rhetoric under Adam Smith at the University of Glasgow before making his first runaway journey to London in the spring of 1760.
November 1762 - August 1763: Resides in London seeking a commission in the Foot Guards and writes his famous London Journal.
May 16, 1763: Meets Samuel Johnson for the first time in Thomas Davies' bookshop at 8 Russell Street, Covent Garden.
1763-1764: Studies civil law at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands (Boswell in Holland).
1764-1766: Undertakes his Grand Tour of Europe, visiting the German courts, interviewing Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire in Switzerland, touring Italy, and travelling to the interior of Corsica in October-November 1765, where he befriends General Pasquale Paoli.
July 26, 1766: Completes his legal qualification with the Latin thesis Disputatio juridica de supellectile legata and is admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh.
February 1768: Publishes An Account of Corsica, earning European renown and the nickname "Corsica Boswell."
November 25, 1769: Marries his first cousin Margaret Montgomerie at Lainshaw.
April 30, 1773: Elected a member of The Club (later known as The Literary Club) in London.
August - November 1773: Travels with Samuel Johnson through the Scottish Highlands and Western Islands.
1777-1783: Writes seventy monthly essays for The London Magazine under the pseudonym The Hypochondriack.
August 30, 1782: Succeeds as 9th Laird of Auchinleck upon the death of his father, Lord Auchinleck.
October 1785: Publishes The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, prepared with the assistance of Edmond Malone.
January 11, 1788: Elected Recorder of Carlisle1; resigns the office in June 1790.
June 4, 1789: Margaret Montgomerie, Boswell's wife, dies of tuberculosis at Auchinleck.
May 16, 1791: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. is published in two quarto volumes in London.
May 19, 1795: James Boswell dies at his house at 122 Great Portland Street, London, following five weeks of illness, and is buried at Auchinleck.