James Boswell

James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (/ˈbɒzˌwɛl, -wəl/; 29 October 1740 – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer and diarist, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson, which the modern Johnsonian critic Harold Bloom has claimed is the greatest biography written in the English language.

Boswell's surname has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer, especially one who records those observations in print. In A Scandal in Bohemia, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes affectionately says of Dr. Watson, who narrates the tales, "I am lost without my Boswell."

Early life

Boswell was born in Blair's Land on the east side of Parliament Close behind St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh on 29 October 1740. He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, and his wife Euphemia Erskine. As the eldest son, he was heir to his family's estate of Auchinleck in Ayrshire. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. As a child, he was delicate and suffered from some type of nervous ailment which appeared to be inherent and would afflict him sporadically all through his life. At the age of five, he was sent to James Mundell's academy, an advanced institution by the standards of the time, where he was instructed in English, Latin, writing and arithmetic. Boswell was unhappy there, and his sickliness began to manifest itself in the physical incidents associated with nightmares and extreme shyness.

James Boswell (disambiguation)

James Boswell (1740–1795) was a Scottish lawyer, diarist, and author

James Boswell may also refer to:

See also

James Boswell (artist)

James Edward Buchanan Boswell (9 June 1906 – 15 April 1971) was a New Zealand-born British painter, draughtsman and socialist.

Life

James Boswell was born in New Zealand on 9 June 1906, at Westport, South Island, the son of a Scottish born schoolmaster, Edward Blair Buchanan Boswell, and his New Zealand born wife Ida Fair. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School, Auckland and the Elam School of Art before coming to London in 1925 to continue his training at the Royal College of Art until 1929. Although he was dismissed twice from the RCA painting school over conflicts with its then anti-modern stance, his early works were accepted by the London Group, with whom he exhibited from 1927 to 1932.

He joined the Communist Party in 1932, switching from oil painting to illustration and establishing himself as a left-wing artist in the 1930s. He was a co-founder of the Marxist and anti-Fascist pressure group, the International Organization of Artists for Revolutionary Proletarian Art (later called Artists' International Association - the AIA), and contributed Hogarthian satirical prints to the Left Review, for which he was art editor, and Daily Worker.

James Boswell (1778-1822)

James Boswell, the Younger (1778 – 24 February 1822) was a barrister-at-law. He was the second surviving son of Samuel Johnson's biographer James Boswell.

Early life and career

Boswell received his early education at an academy in Soho Square and at Westminster School, and is spoken of by the elder Boswell as "an extraordinary boy, very much of his father", who destined him for the bar.

Entered at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1797, he took his B.A. degree in 1801, proceeding M.A. in 1806, and was elected a fellow on the Vinerian foundation. While a student at Brasenose he contributed notes signed "J. B. O." to the third edition of his father's Life of Samuel Johnson, and afterwards carefully revised and corrected the text for the sixth edition (see Malone's Prefaces).

Called to the bar of the Inner Temple, 24 May 1805, he was afterwards appointed a commissioner of bankrupts.

Literary work with Edmond Malone

He was from an early age close to his father's friend Edmond Malone, whom he assisted in collecting and arranging the materials for a second edition of his Shakespeare, and was requested by him in his last illness to complete it, a task which he duly performed. He contributed to The Gentleman's Magazine for June 1813 a memoir of Malone, which in 1814 he reprinted for private circulation.