Genius Fan

There are a number of topics I want to write about in the Genius Fan blog, and while I was out dog walking this evening I thought to myself, ‘If I get run over and killed by a bus I’ll regret not having made the time to sketch and write about them’ (my dogs survive this scenario, by the way). This is my list:

• Richard B Sher’s amazing book The Enlightenment and the Book (Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth Century Britain, Ireland and America’. I got it for my birthday this year and I treat it a bit like I did a pair of new shoes when I was a kid….I keep it near me and keep glancing at it.
• Denis Diderot. Honestly, if I was French I think GeniusFan would be about the life and times of Denis Diderot in the Eighteenth century (and not James Boswell). His life is fascinating. If only he’d kept a journal like Boswell.
• Chauncey B Tinker, American literary scholar (died in 1963) who missed out big on Boswell. Also, what a great name.
• On board a ship taking Scots Highlanders to America in the Eighteenth century. Bernard Bailyn wrote about it in his excellent book ‘Voyagers to the West: Emigration from Britain to America on the Eve of the Revolution’