Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful, rich and alive account of an alien world., 11 Feb 2001
By A Customer
I read this book purely for the purpose of researching the period. Nothing dry and stuffy here though - a wonderful read from beginning to end. In introduction we learn of the intriguing history of the manuscript itself - of the amazing catalogue of coincidence that discovered it intact against all odds. We then plunge back in time to find ourselves in a jarring carriage and breathing the frost with an uncomfortable night's unscheduled stop in an inn. Immediately, we are there with Boswell - his enthusiasm makes us see and feel his world and allows us to do what would be virtually impossible even today: to meet the luminaries of the time. We smell the sweat, the beer, and squirm in the presence of that cantankerous bull and king of the literati, Samuel Johnson. A marvellous read for it's freshness, as well as it's authenticity, and highly recommended by this reviewer.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Both fascinating and hilarious, 2 Jun 2006
One of the best books I have read about the period. Boswell depicts 18th century London in all its finery and decadence while himself teetering between the two. On the one hand, it is a great historical work, giving us insight into a fascinating period of our history. On the other, it is the diary of a 22 year old newly arrived in London with his hormones racing and a world of temptation before him. In one day, he manages to mix in the high society of London and scour St James's Park for the prostitute with the amplest bosom. Boswell is like a real life Squire Haggard, and as such he is far more entertaining.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
When a man is tired of London . . . , 4 Mar 2009
`WEDNESDAY 15 JUNE. I breakfasted with Lord Eglinton We then walked in Green Park. He said I was the only man he ever knew who had a vast deal of vanity and yet was not in the least degree offensive.'
This is the 18th Century London of outrageous picaresque fantasy, except that it all happens to be true. Boswell is irresistible company, heroically insistent on putting every snobbery, low lifery, piety, lechery, imbecility, arrogance and every other contradiction of his extraordinary personality straight down on to paper with no attempt at equivocation. It helps in that he has a genius for friendship and so appears to be able to gain entrée into the lives of apparently anybody of consequence in London in any walk of life. Samuel Johnson appears midway or so through the performance like the deus ex machina, anticipating the central fate of Boswell's life, but at the time he is unaware of this, as he battles to get his grail-like commission into `The Guards' - a commission which Boswell is typically forthright in admitting to his potential and high ranking sponsors that he is only interested in for the opportunities it affords of glamour, prestige, living the London high life and the distinct unlikelihood of the regiment actually becoming involved in any bothersome military action.
Despite the 22 year old's hedonistic wilfulness, the deeply moral, strong willed, religious and worldly wise literary giant Samuel Johnson perceives the true worth of the young man with the photographic memory and the genius for structuring reality who was to become his ideal amanuensis.
`FRIDAY 22 JULY. . . He [Johnson] said, `There are few people whom I take so much to as you' ; and when I talked of leaving England, he said (with an affection that almost made me cry), `My dear Boswell! I should be very unhappy at parting, did I think we were not to meet again.'
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