James Boswell

James Boswell was born in Edinburgh in 1740, the eldest son of a Scottish judge. Educated at the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Utrecht, he was drawn early to literature and the company of celebrated figures, traveling to meet Voltaire and Rousseau as a young man. His meeting with Samuel Johnson in a London bookshop in 1763 initiated the most famous literary friendship in English history. Over the next two decades, Boswell cultivated his relationship with Johnson while pursuing a career as a lawyer, traveling widely, and keeping the extensive journals that would provide the raw material for his masterwork. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by The Life of Samuel Johnson.