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Biography & MemoirsBoswell's Life of Johnson (Abridged)James BoswellBoswell's Life of Johnson (Abridged)

Boswell's Life of Johnson (Abridged)

James Boswell

Biography & MemoirsEnglish
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James Boswell first met Samuel Johnson in a London bookshop in 1763, and for more than twenty years he recorded Johnson's conversation and character, his…

Catalogue details

Author
James Boswell
Category
Biography & Memoirs
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

James Boswell first met Samuel Johnson in a London bookshop in 1763, and for more than twenty years he recorded Johnson's conversation and character, his poverty and struggles as a young writer, the making of his great Dictionary, his melancholy, his kindness, his prejudices and his brilliant talk. Here are many of the sayings that made Johnson the most quoted Englishman after Shakespeare: 'when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life', 'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel', and many more.

Context and significance

Boswell published the Life in 1791, and it is often called the greatest biography in English. This edition, by Charles Grosvenor Osgood, is an abridgement, which makes the long original easier to read while keeping its best scenes. Boswell's earlier account of their travels together is The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, and Johnson's own fable is Rasselas.

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