Boswell's London Journal

Kept from November 1762 to August 1763, this diary records the young Scot James Boswell's first long stay in London: lodgings, taverns, the theatre, sexual encounters, and his campaign to secure a commission in the Guards. He notes conversations with politicians, actors, and men of letters, and his first meetings with Samuel Johnson, which begin their acquaintance. The voice is candid and self-dramatising. First published from manuscript in 1950, the journal is a day-by-day account of ambition and appetite in Georgian London, not a finished biography or a novel.

Quarter bound in black cloth, with paper sides printed with a facsimile of Boswell’s handwriting. White endpapers feature an image of an eighteenth century gentleman. Plain off-white slipcase.