In Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality, in a biography to which we owe much of our knowledge of the man himself. Through a series of richly detailed anecdotes, Johnson emerges as a sociable figure, vigorously engaging and fencing with great contemporaries such as Garrick, Goldsmith, Burney and Burke, and of course with Boswell himself. Yet anxieties...

Excerpt from Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland) The wild objects which he said he wished to see I have not neglected, but here I trust chiefly to Mr. Speed's art. The peculiar manners which interested him far more than natural objects have been my special study. Even before I took the present work in hand I had examined them somewhat closely; but last summer, on my return from Scotland, in a quiet recess of the Bodleian Library, I carried my inquiries...