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Book Details
  • Image
    Cover of Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica and France. Edited by Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle
Long title
Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France 1765-1766
Year of 1st publication
1955
Book description

Following his joyous travels through Germany and Switzerland in the summer and fall of 1764, Boswell spent the next year travelling first through Italy and then on to the mysterious island of Corsica. 

This volume covers his journey, including his tumultuous companionship through some of the journey with the young Lord Montstuart, the beginning of his friendship with the controversial politician-in-exile John Wilkes, his meeting with the Jacobite circle in Rome including Andrew Lumisden, secretary to the Young Pretender, and his affair with an older married woman, Girolama Piccolomini. Also included is his journey to Corsica and his meeting with the rebel commander, later to become a friend and guest at Boswell's wedding in 1769, Pasquale Paoli. The volume concludes with Boswell's journey home through France, his return to London and also includes his final correspondence with Rousseau.

The source material for Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica and France, includes Boswell's journal covering most of the journey, various memoranda and notes, some "Reflections Written in Siena", a few Ten-Lines-a-Day Verses, Boswell's expense accounts and upwards of 210 letters sent or received by Boswell between January 1, 1765, and February 23, 1766, as well as a few letters of a later date.

Availability

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