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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Listings for Author:  

James Boswell

  

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James Boswell : Tour to the Hebrides

'We have got Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, and are to have his Life of Johnson.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Austen      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Tour of the Hebrides

'Weeton's reading becomes important in communication with friends, but also a point of conflict: when she visits her brother and his wife, they complain that she spends all her time reading, though she insists that she read very little ("only... Gil Blas, now and then a newspaper, two or three of Lady M. W. Montagu's letters, and few pages in a magazine'), and only because her hosts rose so late. Since her literacy is important as a sign of status, she repeatedly presents herself not as a reader of low status texts like novels but of travels, education works, memoirs and letters, including Boswell's "Tour of the Hebrides", the Travels of Mungo Park, and Mme de Genlis' work. She approves some novels, like Hamilton's "The Cottagers of Glenburnie", but generally finds them a "dangerous, facinating kind of amusement" which "destroy all relish for useful, instructive studies'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

Commenced Boswell's Life of Johnson and was much pleased with it.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Horrocks Ainsworth      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

Dined at five - went on with Boswell having discontinued it, since Saturday January 23rd.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Horrocks Ainsworth      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : 

'As a circuit preacher Pyke introduced farm people to Milton, Carlyle, Ruskin and Tolstoy. His own reading ranged from Shakespeare and Boswell to Shelley's poems and George Henry Lewes's History of Philosophy. He was even prepared to acknowledge the "genius" of Jude the Obscure, though he would have preferred a happy ending'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Richard Pyke      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'Jack Common recalled that his mother brought him a secondhand and severely abridged "Life of Johnson" for 1d., and he had to read it several times before he even partially absorbed it'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Jack Common      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Saturday 30 August 1800: 'I read a little of Boswell's Life of Johnson.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Sunday 14 September 1800: 'Read Boswell in the house in the morning, and after dinner under the bright yellow leaves of the orchard.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Sunday 14 September 1800: 'Read Boswell in the house in the morning, and after dinner under the bright yellow leaves of the orchard.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The journal of a tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson

Began Dr Johnson's tour to the Hebrides, A journey to the western Isles of scotland... My aunt and I read aloud the evening service.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lister      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

?Boswell showed his genius in setting forth Johnson?s weaknesses as well as his strength. But if Boswell had been Johnson?s brother? I cannot be simply eulogistic if the portrait is to be lifelike; but I find it very hard to speak of defects without either concealing my opinion that they were defects. Or on the other hand, taking a tone of superiority & condescension.?

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel

Books lately read: A Journal of a tour to the Hebrides with Dr Johnson, by James Boswell, Esq. J. Boswell does appear so wonderfully simple, so surprisingly ingenuous, that I cannot but smile as I read his work...

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Ellen Weeton      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

'I have been reading Boswell's Life of Johnson which is very entertaining; I never saw Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides or Western Islands, I suppose it is an amusing Book.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Sharp      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

'Recd a parcel from William last night. I was at the time reading Boswell's Life of Johnson, but it was immediately laid down, for the entertainment I anticipated, from hearing how Cobbett stood...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Sharp      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

H. J. Jackson discusses Leigh Hunt's responsive annotations, including personal reminiscences and observations, as well as critical remarks, to his copy of James Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: James Leigh Hunt      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

"Fulke Greville's copy of Boswell [Life of Johnson] stands out among individual copies annotated by readers who had known Boswell or Johnson or other members of their circle ... offering facts or interpretations of events that may be at odds with the text and that supplement it in useful ways."

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Fulke Greville      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson discusses annotations of unidentified male reader in 1793 copy of Boswell's Life of Johnson; this reader, referred to in annotations as "Mr L", known to be from Lichfield, twenty years Johnson's junior, and also a pupil at Lichfield Grammar School and student at Pembroke College, Oxford; annotations date from 1793 to 1800.

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mr L.      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson notes John Gibson Lockhart's annotations, including personal reminiscences in response to sections of text, in his copy of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Gibson Lockhart      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

"An unknown reader inclined to be sarcastic at Boswell's expense in a British Library copy of the 1829 edition [of the Life of Johnson] ... goes to some pains to record a moment of agreement with Johnson's protest ' [...] What is climate to happiness? Place me in the heart of Asia, should I not be exiled?' This the reader confirms by his own example: '15th Novr on the Nile -- how often have I found this realised' (p.198)."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: anon      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson notes unknown reader's marginal contradiction of assertion of Samuel Johnson that a dog will be as likely to take a small piece of meat as a large one, when presented wth both, recorded in James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: anon      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson on readers' responses in annotations to Samuel Johnson's comment that the letter H seldom begins any but the first syllable of a word, recorded by James Boswell in the Life of Samuel Johnson: "A Cambridge University Library copy of the first edition annotated in at least four hands has in the margin at that point a list of words that would appear to refute Johnson's statement: 'Shepherd / Cowherd / Abhor / Behave / Uphold / Exhaust' (1: 166)."

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: anon      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson discusses copious annotations made in 2-volume first-edition (1791) copy of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, which signed "Scriblerus" (who Jackson identifies as Fulke Greville), commenting: "[Scriblerus] evidently read the Life, or at least dipped into it, more than once: a summary note from the end of his first reading is dated November 1791, but other notes include dates in 1792 and 1797."

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Fulke Greville      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson discusses copious annotations made in 2-volume first-edition (1791) copy of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, which signed "Scriblerus" (who Jackson identifies as Fulke Greville), commenting: "[Scriblerus] evidently read the Life, or at least dipped into it, more than once: a summary note from the end of his first reading is dated November 1791, but other notes include dates in 1792 and 1797."

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Fulke Greville      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D

H. J. Jackson discusses copious annotations made in 2-volume first-edition (1791) copy of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, which signed "Scriblerus" (who Jackson identifies as Fulke Greville), commenting: "[Scriblerus] evidently read the Life, or at least dipped into it, more than once: a summary note from the end of his first reading is dated November 1791, but other notes include dates in 1792 and 1797."

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Fulke Greville      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : probably Life of Johnson

'We are reading in the evenings now, Sydney Smith's letters, Boswell, Whewell's History of Inductive Sciences, the Odyssey and occasionally Heine's Reisebilder. I began the second Book of the Iliad in Greek this morning'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes     Print: BookManuscript: Unknown

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

'In the course of my very desultory readings, I perused "Boswell's Life of Dr Johnson"; which I still consider to be a very amusing and very instructive piece of biography.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

' ... he [ie George III] paid attention when books were read to him, and asked for excerpts from Boswell's "Life of Johnson" ...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: King George III      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

'I have been reading the "Life of Dr. Johnson", and in a letter of his to a friend on the death of his mother I found the following passage, which reminded me of a resolve made some time ago, but forgotten.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Donald William Alers Hankey      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'It was about noon, and the officers had all gone home to their dinners, when, as I sat on my stool munching my loaf and reading Boswell's "Life of Dr Johnson", I heard a shuffling of feet outside and my cell-door was thrown open by the patrol'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: anon      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'Pursued Boswell's "life of Johnson"....'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

'Dipped into Boswell's "Life of Johnson". Johnson pronounces Hume either mad or a liar...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'Just now I am reading nightly in bed Boswell?s "Life of Johnson". I suppose you know it by heart. Without doubt it is the most agreeable & diverting thing in non-imaginative literature in English.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett      Print: Book

  

[James] Boswell : Life of [Samuel] Johnson

'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] Boswell's "Life of Johnson; ...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

'Tuesday May 23rd. [...] Read Boswell's Life of Johnson.' [records of reading this text also appear in entries for 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 May 1820]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.

'Read Boswell's life of Johnson'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.

'Read Livy - finish Life of Johnson'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 10 July 1832: 'Mr Croker has lately published an edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. I have been looking over it, and do not think his additions & notes of much value. But he is impartial, -- which is a wonderful merit in an editor.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D.

[Mary Shelley's reading list for 1820, with texts also read by Percy Shelley marked with an x. Only texts not mentioned in the journal are given separate entries based on this list] 'M. (& (S with an x) - 1820 The remainder of Livy. x The Bible until the end of Ezekhiel x Don Juan x Travels Before the Flood La Nouvelle Heloise The Fable of the Bees Paine's Works Utopia x Voltaire's Memoires x The Aenied [sic] And Georgics Bridone's Travels Robinson Crusoe Sandford & Merton x Astronomy in the Encyclopaedia Vindication of the Rights of women x Boswell's life of Johnson Paradise regained & lost Mary - Letters from Norway & Posthumus [sic] Works Ivanhoe - Tales of my Landlord Fleetwood - Caleb Williams x Ricciardetto. x Mrs Macauly's [sic] Hist. of Engd x Lucretius The 3 first orations of Cicero Muratori Anti chita [sic] d'Italia Travels & Rebellion in Ireland Tegrino's life of Castruccio x Boccacio [sic] - Decamerone x Keats' poems x armata Corinne The first book of Homer. Oedippus [sic] Tyrannus A Little Spanish & much Italian.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson

'I have read Boswell I am sure ten times - & hope to read it many more it is the most amusing book in the world, besides that I do love the kind hearted wise & Gentle Bear - & think him as loveable a [Man] friend as a profound philosopher' [letter to John Murray, who had just published a new edition of Boswell's Life Of Johnson that Mary was keen to possess]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

'You talk of reading "a very old book": Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. Why that's a [underlined] chickn [sic, underlined] compared to my present reading. I am reduced to a perusal of my own little library, and am solacing myself with Plutarch's Lives, and Robertson's History of Charles V. and vary my sport occasionally with an Historical Play of Shakespear, or a good Sunday Book.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Grosvenor      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

' - I read Boswell's tour in the Hebrides and speculate agreeably on the probable difference between Boswell's conception of the Hebrides and yours - '

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Vita Sackville-West      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : A Life of Samuel Johnson

'Fortunately Peter had lots of reading matter and he loaned me "Doctor Johnson".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Smythe      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : [account given to him by Mrs Williams]

'[referring to a dispute over whether Johnson wrote certain papers in "The Adventurer"] Mrs Williams told me that, "as he had [italics] given [end italics] those Essays to Dr Bathurst, who sold them at two guineas each, he never would own them; nay, he used to say that he did not [italics] write [end italics] them: but the fact was, that he [italics] dictated [end italics] them,while Bathurst wrote". I read to him Mrs Williams's account; he smiled, and said nothing'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell      Manuscript: Unknown

  

James Boswell : [letter to Johnson from Corsica]

'He kept the greater part of mine [letters] very carefully; and a short time before his death was attentive enough to seal them up in bundles, and ordered them to be delivered to me, which was accordingly done. Amongst them I found one, of which I had not made a copy, and which I own I read with pleasure at the distance of twenty years. It is dated November, 1765, at the palace of Pascal Paoli, in Corte, the capital of Corsica, and is full of generous enthusiasm. After giving a sketch of what I had seen and heard in that island, it proceeded thus: "I dare to call this a spirited tour. I dare to challenge your approbation."'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell      Manuscript: Letter

  

James Boswell : Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

'[Letter from Johnson to Boswell] I have now three parcels of Lord Hailes's history, which I purpose to return all the next week: that his respect for my little observations should keep his work in suspense makes one of the evils of my journey. It is in our language, I think, a new mode of history which tells all that is wanted, and, I suppose, all that is known, without laboured splendour of language, or affected subtilty of conjecture. The exactness of his dates raises my wonder. He seems to have the closeness of Renault without his constraint. Mrs. Thrale was so entertained with your [italics] Journal [end italics] that she almost read herself blind. She has a great regard for you'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale      Manuscript: Unknown

  

James Boswell : [notes of conversation between Wilkes and Dr Johnson]

'Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes talked of the contested passage in Horace's "Art of Poetry", "[italics] Difficile est proprie communia dicere.[end italics]' Mr. Wilkes according to my note, gave the interpretation thus; "It is difficult to speak with propriety of common things; as, if a poet had to speak of Queen Caroline drinking tea, he must endeavour to avoid the vulgarity of cups and saucers". But upon reading my note, he tells me that he meant to say, that "the word [italics]communia [end italics], being a Roman law term, signifies here things [italics]communis juris [end italics], that is to say, what have never yet been treated by any body; and this appears clearly from what followed, "[italics]--Tuque Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus." [end italics] "You will easier make a tragedy out of the Iliad than on any subject not handled before".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilkes      Manuscript: Unknown

  

James Boswell : An Account of Corsica: The Journal of a Tour to That Island, & Memoirs of Pascal Paoli

' [letter from Sir Alexander Dick to Johnson] I had yesterday the honour of receiving your book of your "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland", which you was so good as to send me, by the hands of our mutual friend, Mr. Boswell, of Auchinleck; for which I return you my most hearty thanks; and after carefully reading it over again, shall deposit in my little collection of choice books, next our worthy friend's "Journey to Corsica". As there are many things to admire in both performances, I have often wished that no Travels or Journeys should be published but those undertaken by persons of integrity and capacity to judge well, and describe faithfully, and in good language, the situation, condition, and manners of the countries past through.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Alexander Dick      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson.

'I idle finely. I read Boswell’s "Life of Johnson"[…]'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Letter to the People of Scotland on the Present State of the Nation

'[Letter from Johnson to Boswell] 'I have just advanced so far towards recovery as to read a pamphlet; and you may reasonably suppose that the first pamphlet which I read was yours. I am very much of your opinion, and, like you, feel great indignation at the indecency with which the King is every day treated. Your paper contains very considerable knowledge of history and of the constitution, very properly produced and applied. It will certainly raise your character, though perhaps it may not make you a Minister of State.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson

The Earl of Aberdeen to John Wilson Croker, in response to a query regarding quotation from Homer by Thucydides, 1 September 1846: 'I should have answered your letter sooner, but I had not a copy of the Life of Johnson at hand; and before writing to you, I wished to see the passage to which you refer. 'From the expressions of Johnson, it would appear that he thought the lines quoted by Thucydides were from the Iliad or Odyssey, in which case they certainly would not be found in any of our copies. But the quotation is from the hymn to Apollo. It is in the third book of his history, and in that part of it in which he gives an account of the extraordinary and barbarous proceeding, called by the Athenians the purification of Delos.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Earl of Aberdeen      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson

John Wilson Croker to Lord Brougham (1850-51): 'And so you are reading my Bozzy'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Brougham      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. 'In the following lines, by that pious and most excellent of men, Dr Johnson, we are consoled with the assurance that happiness may be attained if we "apply our hearts" to piety' Transcribes poem beginning "Where then shall hope and fear their object find? / Shall dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind?..." and ends '1749- aged 40.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: anon      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson

Lady Harriet Cavendish to her former governess, Selina Trimmer, 9 November 1803: 'I have at present a [italics]Johnson[end italics] mania upon me, which I hope you will allow is better than a [italics]novel[end italics] one. I have been [italics]re[end italics]-reading Mrs. Piozzi and Boswell. The latter I think very entertaining, and it is so long since I had read it that I had almost forgotten it. I have hardly patience with Boswell's conceit and pride and wish he would fancy himself a secondary personage [French], as he almost always prefers telling one what he thought and did, to Johnson, and he is too uninteresting to make it ever excusable.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Harriet Cavendish      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson

Lady Harriet Cavendish to her former governess, Selina Trimmer, 9 November 1803: 'I have at present a [italics]Johnson[end italics] mania upon me, which I hope you will allow is better than a [italics]novel[end italics] one. I have been [italics]re[end italics]-reading Mrs. Piozzi and Boswell. The latter I think very entertaining, and it is so long since I had read it that I had almost forgotten it. I have hardly patience with Boswell's conceit and pride and wish he would fancy himself a secondary personage [French], as he almost always prefers telling one what he thought and did, to Johnson, and he is too uninteresting to make it ever excusable.'

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Harriet Cavendish      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Samuel Johnson

Mary Shelley to John Murray, acknowledging his gift of Croker's edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson (1831): 'I have read "Boswell's Journal" ten times: I hope to read it many more. It is the most amusing book in the world [...] I do not see, in your list of authors whose anecdotes are extracted, the name of Mrs. D'Arblay; her account of Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, &c., in her "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," are highly interesting and valuable [sic].'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'The evening was then devoted to Samuel Johnson as seen through the biography of Boswell. Two papers were contributed. By Mr Burrow on "a Second Hand Book" which threw an interesting sidelight on Dr Johnson & By H.R. Smith who gave us an interesting account of the biographer. Readings from the biography were given by Mr Rawlings, Mr Unwin, Mr Evans & Mr Wallis, Mr Robson'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'The evening was then devoted to Samuel Johnson as seen through the biography of Boswell. Two papers were contributed. By Mr Burrow on "a Second Hand Book" which threw an interesting sidelight on Dr Johnson & By H.R. Smith who gave us an interesting account of the biographer. Readings from the biography were given by Mr Rawlings, Mr Unwin, Mr Evans & Mr Wallis, Mr Robson'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ernest E. Unwin      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'The evening was then devoted to Samuel Johnson as seen through the biography of Boswell. Two papers were contributed. By Mr Burrow on "a Second Hand Book" which threw an interesting sidelight on Dr Johnson & By H.R. Smith who gave us an interesting account of the biographer. Readings from the biography were given by Mr Rawlings, Mr Unwin, Mr Evans & Mr Wallis, Mr Robson'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'The evening was then devoted to Samuel Johnson as seen through the biography of Boswell. Two papers were contributed. By Mr Burrow on "a Second Hand Book" which threw an interesting sidelight on Dr Johnson & By H.R. Smith who gave us an interesting account of the biographer. Readings from the biography were given by Mr Rawlings, Mr Unwin, Mr Evans & Mr Wallis, Mr Robson'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'The evening was then devoted to Samuel Johnson as seen through the biography of Boswell. Two papers were contributed. By Mr Burrow on "a Second Hand Book" which threw an interesting sidelight on Dr Johnson & By H.R. Smith who gave us an interesting account of the biographer. Readings from the biography were given by Mr Rawlings, Mr Unwin, Mr Evans & Mr Wallis, Mr Robson'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : ?Life of Johnson

'His reading in 1938 and 1939 had been mainly of memoirs and autobiographies: Boswell, Greville, Logan Pearsall Smith's Unforgotten Years, Siegfried Sassoon's The Old Century, Somerset Maugham's The Summing-Up ("a very honest confession of faith").'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Wedding Day

'Meeting held at Gower Cottage. 8th May ’43
    Muriel Stevens in the Chair
1. Minutes of last meeting read & signed

[...]

3. Knox Taylor opened our study of Johnson & his Circle by giving us a most comprehensive picture of the background of this period.

4. Howard Smith told us of Johnson’s life and publications.

5. Isabel Taylor read Johnson’s famous letter to Lord Chesterfield.

6. Roger Moore read ‘The Wedding Day’ by Boswell & an account of his first meeting with Johnson.

7. F. E. Pollard described Johnson’s Circle. He spoke of Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Goldsmith, Boswell, Richardson, Fielding, Mrs. Thrale and her daughter Hester & others and A. B Dilks read from Johnson’s “Vanity of Human Wishes.”

8. Mention must be made of the excellent refreshments provided by our hostess and the Secretary regrets that owing to lack of time, she has in these minutes done Scant justice to a most thoughtfully prepared & extremely interesting evening.

[signed as a true record by] Howard R Smith 22/6/43 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 155: ‘We adjourned indoors & the minutes of the last meeting were read, corrected and signed.’]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : [an account of Boswell’s first meeting with Johnson: probably from his Life of Samuel Johnson]

'Meeting held at Gower Cottage. 8th May ’43
    Muriel Stevens in the Chair
1. Minutes of last meeting read & signed

[...]

3. Knox Taylor opened our study of Johnson & his Circle by giving us a most comprehensive picture of the background of this period.

4. Howard Smith told us of Johnson’s life and publications.

5. Isabel Taylor read Johnson’s famous letter to Lord Chesterfield.

6. Roger Moore read ‘The Wedding Day’ by Boswell & an account of his first meeting with Johnson.

7. F. E. Pollard described Johnson’s Circle. He spoke of Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Goldsmith, Boswell, Richardson, Fielding, Mrs. Thrale and her daughter Hester & others and A. B Dilks read from Johnson’s “Vanity of Human Wishes.”

8. Mention must be made of the excellent refreshments provided by our hostess and the Secretary regrets that owing to lack of time, she has in these minutes done Scant justice to a most thoughtfully prepared & extremely interesting evening.

[signed as a true record by] Howard R Smith 22/6/43 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 155: ‘We adjourned indoors & the minutes of the last meeting were read, corrected and signed.’]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 4th September 1943 F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
[...]
6. Edith Smith opened the evening of miscellaneous readings by reading part of a short story “The Man with No Face” by Dorothy Sayers. She left the murder mystery tantalizingly unsolved, but gave us a clever and amusing picture of the occupants rightful and encroaching of a 1st-class railway carriage.
7. Mary Stansfield read from a collection of letters written by Freya Stark entitled “Letters from Syria”. These were written some years ago in an atmosphere of peace & tranquility. A particularly beautiful description of the writer’s first sight of the Greek Islands recalled to F. E. Pollard his voyage there with Charles Stansfield, about which he gave us some interesting and amusing reminiscences.
8. Arnold Joselin Read Boswells account of his first meeting with Johnson and then “My Streatham Visit” by Frances Burney in which she describes meeting Johnson at Thrale Hall and records some of the conversation at the dinner table.
9. [...] we listened to F. E. Pollard reading about “The Functional Alternative” from a pamphlet published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs entitled “A Working Peace System” by David Mitrany. The author suggests that in Post-War Europe we should pursue a line of action similar to that adopted by President Roosevelt in America in 1932/33. This started a lively discussion during which it became apparent that federal union does not function in the Pollard family.
10. Reverting to more tranquil times Howard Smith read from André Maurois’ “Life of Disraeli”. This led to the suggestion that Parliamentary speeches of today might be improved if they contained more personal venom & we were assured that Eleanor Rathbone is doing her best to liven things up.
11. Muriel Stevens read from The Autobiography of a Chinese Girl” by Hsieh Ping- Ying. This proved to be a suitably soothing and uncontroversial ending to a most varied and interesting evening.

[signed as a true record by] Howard R. Smith 6/10/1943 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 161]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Joselin      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : [unspecified letters]

'He [Mr Ritchie] presented me with a fascinating work as a birthday present — Boswell's "Letters" — you can't think how entertaining they are.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell      Print: Book

  

James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson

(1) '...also dipped often into Boswell's "Life of Johnson". Being entirely made up of conversation I don't think it is a book to be read continuously, tho' it is very good fun in bits.' (2) 'I have been dipping into Boswell, whom I grow to like better and better.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

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