Journals of the Western Islands of Scotland [and] The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
by Samuel Johnson 
, James Boswell
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"In 1773, James Boswell made a long-planned journey across the Scottish Highlands with his English friend Samuel Johnson; the two spent more than a hundred days together. Their tour of the Hebrides resulted in two books, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), a kind of locodescriptive ethnography and Johnson's most important work between his Shakespeare edition and his Lives of the Poets. The other, Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson (1785), a show more travel narrative experimenting with biography, the first application of the techniques he would use in his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). These two works form a natural pair and, owing that they cover much of the same material, are often read together, focusing on the Scottish highlands. The text presents a lightly-edited version of both works, preserving the original orthography and corrected typographical errors to fit modern grammar standards. The introduction and notes provide clear and concise explanations on Johnson and Boswell's respective careers, their friendship and grand biographical projects. It also examines the Scottish Enlightenment, the status of England and Scotland during the Reformation through to the Union of the Crowns, and the Jacobite"-- show lessTags
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John_Vaughan Some views from a different century.
Cecrow Johnson and Boswell recorded the same journey, Johnson's being a dry survey and Boswell's a more lively record focussed mostly on his travelling companion.
Member Reviews
The two diarists Dr Johnson (he of Dictionary fame) and James Boswell recount their voyage (taken in the late 18th century) from Edinburgh to around the Hebrides and back. So firstly it's Dr Johnson's "A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland", which in some ways was an easier read for me, in that it was an account of the places they went to and selected people they met (see later on for Boswell's focus, which was less what I was hoping for). There was one passage near the beginning where they are travelling north of Aberdeen where he talks of being told of a previous weather event where the sand dunes were deposited inland and the landowner ended up giving up his land rather than pay to sort it out. That was interesting to me as I show more am pretty sure that is the same place where Donald Trump has built his highly-contested and locally unpopular golf course, where he thinks that he can control the sand dunes. Other than that, my main impression of Dr Johnson was that he could be quite bitchy, and there was a fair bit of English superiority coming across, even in the many passages where he was obviously appreciative of the hospitality he was being shown. There was also a lot of approval of the feudal system and aristocracy/royalty which I really don't like. I think what didn't help was that the image in my head of Dr Johnson is entirely based on his appearance in an episode of "Blackadder the Third", so it was sometimes hard to take it seriously! After that I read Boswell's "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides", which I found much harder to read. Unlike Johnson's account, which was based on places, Boswell's was just a daily account, and he mainly seemed to write about the contents of conversations, regardless of whether they were relevant to the places they were visiting that day. So I did a lot of skim-reading of this one. He also seemed, like Johnson, pretty approving of status/aristocracy, but the really overwhelming impression was of his utter reverence of Dr Johnson, so I found that quite difficult, that he was praising this man for saying stuff to his hosts which I often considered quite rude! This focus just cemented the "Blackadder the Third" character as the Dr Johnson in my head! Even though I was skim-reading, it didn't make this particular account go any quicker! It was just quite hard work, I found - I had to skim, but still look frequently to see if the conversation had stopped and he had actually put in a few sentences about the place they were visiting (which was what I wanted to read!). Overall, I'm really pleased I've read both of these, but I'm not sure I'll be rushing to read them again. show less
The first book by Johnson was good the second by Boswell was better, at least more humourous, with the recording of the sayings of Johnson. I thought it was fascinating to travel with these two gentleman during the time when there were no trains and tours were pretty well rustic. The time in which they travelled too, when Scotland or Old Scotland was disappearing, and the peaceful and the more refined Scotland we know today was taking its place.
Readable, engrossing, sometimes amusing - a classic read.
Marvelous preface by Chapman.
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Author Information
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Samuel Johnson was born in 1709, in Lichfield, England. The son of a bookseller, Johnson briefly attended Pembroke College, Oxford, taught school, worked for a printer, and opened a boarding academy with his wife's money before that failed. Moving to London in 1737, Johnson scratched out a living from writing. He regularly contributed articles and show more moral essays to journals, including the Gentleman's Magazine, the Adventurer, and the Idler, and became known for his poems and satires in imitation of Juvenal. Between 1750 and 1752, he produced the Rambler almost single-handedly. In 1755 Johnson published Dictionary of the English Language, which secured his place in contemporary literary circles. Johnson wrote Rasselas in a week in 1759, trying to earn money to visit his dying mother. He also wrote a widely-read edition of Shakespeare's plays, as well as Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland and Lives of the Poets. Johnson's writing was so thoughtful, powerful, and influential that he was considered a singular authority on all things literary. His stature attracted the attention of James Boswell, whose biography, Life of Johnson, provides much of what we know about its subject. Johnson died in 1784. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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James Boswell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1740 of an old and honored family. As a young man, Boswell was ambitious to have a literary career but reluctantly obeying the wishes of his father, a Scottish Judge, he followed a career in the law. He was admitted to the Scottish bar in 1766. However, his legal practice did not prevent him from show more writing a series of periodical essays, The Hypochondriac (1777-83), and his Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides (1785), was an account of the journey to the outer islands of Scotland undertaken with Samuel Johnson in 1773. In addition, Boswell wrote the impulsively frank Journals, private papers lost to history until they were discovered by modern scholars and issued in a multivolume set. Known during much of his life as Corsican Boswell for his authorship of An Account of Corsica in 1768, his first considerable work, Boswell now bears a name that is synonymous with biographer. The reason rests in the achievement of his Life of Samuel Johnson published in 1791, seven years after the death of Johnson. Boswell recorded in his diary the anxiety of the long-awaited encounter with Johnson, on May 16, 1763, in the back parlor of a London bookstore, and upon their first meeting he began collecting Johnson's conversations and opinions. Johnson was a daunting subject for a biographer, in part because of his extraordinary, outsized presence and, in part because Johnson himself was a pioneer in the art of literary biography. Boswell met the challenge by taking an anecdotal, year-by-year approach to the wealth of biographical material he gathered. show less
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- Canonical title
- Journals of the Western Islands of Scotland [and] The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
- Original publication date
- 1775-01 (Johnson) (Johnson); 1785 (Boswell) (Boswell); 1924 (Chapman) (Chapman)
- People/Characters
- James Boswell; Samuel Johnson; Flora MacDonald; Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie"
- Important places
- Hebrides, Scotland, UK (a.k.a, the Western Isles); Iona, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, UK; Skye, Highland, Scotland, UK
- First words
- I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited; and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by finding i... (show all)n Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my enquiry, and whose gayety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less hospitable than we have passed.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.
- Disambiguation notice
- This work combines two works by two different authors, Samuel Johnson ("Western Isles") and James Boswell ("Hebrides") who together toured the Hebrides in western Scotland. Johnson published his book in 1775, Boswell in 1785.... (show all) Later editors have often combined the two. Boswell also described the tour more briefly in his biography of Johnson (1791).
Classifications
- Genres
- Travel, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 914.1140473 — History & geography Geography & travel Geography of and travel in Europe British Isles, UK, Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland Scotland Eilean Siar; Outer Hebrides; Hebrides subdivisions and modified standard subdivisions Travel; guidebooks 1714-1837 1760-1820
- LCC
- DA880 .H4 .J6 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Great Britain History of Great Britain Scotland Local history and description
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 777
- Popularity
- 35,845
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (4.05)
- Languages
- English, German, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 24
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 37
