English Literature / Unit 11 ENL 1022 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Captions available
The idea
James Boswell, a young Scot, met Johnson in a London bookshop in seventeen sixty-three and recorded his talk for twenty years. His Life of Samuel Johnson, of seventeen ninety-one, is often called the greatest English biography, and in it Boswell portrays himself as well.
In practice
Recorded conversation; a biography.
Where people slip
Boswell's Johnson is filtered through Boswell.
Your place on the trail
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