James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (29 October 1740 – 19 May 1795) was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. 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."
Read more about James Boswell: Early Life, European Travels, Mature Life, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Slavery, Discovery of Papers, Works, Published Journals
Famous quotes by james boswell:
“‘English! they are barbarians; they don’t believe in the great God.’ I told him, ‘Excuse me, Sir. We do believe in God, and in Jesus Christ too.’ ‘Um,’ says he, ‘and in the Pope?’ ‘No.’ ‘And why?’ This was a puzzling question in these circumstances.... I thought I would try a method of my own, and very gravely replied, ‘Because we are too far off.’ A very new argument against the universal infallibility of the Pope.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)