Genius Fan

If a bolt of lightning should strike me, leaving me dead, the person who discovers my smoking corpse (it’s always a dog walker) may notice the faintest smile on my blackened lips. If they’re perceptive they’ll read that smile as ‘satisfaction’ – and they’d be right for I now own two Eighteenth century best sellers, originals dating from the very year of their first printing. To be sure, I’ll miss a lot if I ‘go’ suddenly like that, but ownership of these books makes a surprising offset. I bought them online and they arrived in the post separately within the past week: 1. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, Samuel Johnson (1775) and 2. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D, James Boswell (1785). They’re second editions, so not of great financial value, but they are meaningful to me. I wanted to know what it would feel like to handle these volumes, if anything would be different. Would I get some sense of time, the period when they were written.

So, I opened the Johnson parcel first, pulled out the volume and hefted it. One has to heft a book. (Note to self: Write a post about book heft. [Follow up note: I did write the post and it was completely pointless. Do not read it.]) Nice. Review the overall condition (does it match what I was expecting), this volume is 250 years old. Hold the book in my left hand, open it, turn the first pages looking for the printed date: MDCCLXXV. Then, while my wife watches skeptically, I silently and reverently read the opening lines that I know so well: “I had desired to visit the Hebrides…”. I do the same with Boswell’s book (actually, this is the bigger thrill for me. I’m a Boswell fan first and foremost.) Eyeball it, manipulate it between my hands, sense a faint tobacco smell, sneeze, open the cover, turn the pages, find the publication date: MDCCLXXXV. I turn more pages and read the opening line: “Dr Johnson had for many years given me hopes…” My breathing stops, my heart slows, my digestion stops, my eyes are closed, I straighten my spine upright and tilt my chin up as if in defiance of a guilty verdict, and I feel the heft of this volume transmitting signals of fulfilment up my arm. Under my breath I murmur, “His masterpiece…” and my wife says, “Will you bring the washing in, that’s the rain on.”

Notes
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, Samuel Johnson (1775)
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson LL.D, James Boswell (1785)