Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763
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James Boswell; Edited by Frederick A. Pottle; Foreword by Peter Ackroyd
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Format: PaperPrice: $23.00
In 1762 James Boswell, then twenty-two years old, left Edinburgh for London. The famous Journal he kept during the next nine months is an intimate account of his encounters with the high-life and the low-life in London. Frank and confessional as a personal portrait of the young Boswell, the Journal is also revealing as a vivid portrayal of life in eighteenth-century London. This new edition includes an introduction by Peter Ackroyd, which discusses Boswell’s life and achievement.
“Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book.”—Peter Ackroyd, from the introduction
“Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book.”—Peter Ackroyd, from the Introduction
Praise for the earlier edition:
"[The journal is] more perceptive and uninhibited and magically alive than one could have hoped. . . . Boswell transforms the most trifling occurrences into adventures, and imparts to the reader his own surpassing lust for experience and his keen sense of the fascination of life."—Austin Wright, Virginia Quarterly Review
"The journal is admirably edited and annotated.”—W. H. Auden, New Yorker
The late Frederick Pottle, Sterling Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University, was editor, bibliographer, and biographer of James Boswell. Peter Ackroyd is the author of London: The Biography, The Life of Thomas More, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination, and many other books.
"The journal is admirably edited and annotated by Frederick A. Pottle."—W. H. Auden, New Yorker
“Boswell was 22 when he left Edinburgh for London in 1762, and his vivid, lively journal of the next nine months, recording his intimate encounters with the literati and the low life of London, is a classic.”—Toronto Globe and Mail
"[The journal is] more perceptive and uninhibited and magically alive than one could have hoped. . . . Boswell transforms the most trifling occurrences into adventures, and imparts to the reader his own surpassing lust for experience and his keen sense of the fascination of life."—Austin Wright, Virginia Quarterly Review
Publication Date: July 11, 2004
3 b/w illus.
![](https://drupal.yalebooks.yale.edu/sites/default/files/styles/book_jacket/public/imagecache/external/6fe108954ce67da3e9a80dfca29b37ab.jpg?itok=hwQImq7b "The Correspondence & Other Papers of James Boswell Relating to the Making of the "Life of Johnson"")
