This afternoon’s mission for an Eighteenth century experience ended in disappointment. And then satisfaction. I went to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow to see the collection known as the Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle in the Collection of Lt. Colonel Ralph Heyward Isham. (This privately funded and published collection of papers, discovered at Malahide Castle, Dublin, Ireland, was the first attempt to bring Boswell’s archive of journals to the public. I have only ever seen photos of the collection.) The assistant took my paper request, went ‘in the back’ and returned minutes later to announce, “they’re in the strong room. You’ll need to email in your request.” I took my instructions, somewhat irked, thanked him and headed downstairs wondering how to spend the next two hours while my wife was at the hairdresser.
Thirty minutes later, after a brainwave over a cup of coffee in the library cafe I returned to the 4th floor and submitted a paper request for a number of volumes from the Yale Research Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell. (Yale University became the home of the Boswell archive, after purchasing Lt. Col Isham’s collection as well as a huge cache of papers from another Boswell find at Fettercairn in Scotland.) I sat down at a bank of public computer terminals to check on my wife’s progress under the hairdresser’s scissors, when I heard the squeak of wheels approaching. “I just thought I’d bring the lot,” said the fella pushing a sack truck containing fourteen volumes in the Yale Research series (including two copies of the same book and a second edition of one volume…call it twelve.) Nice. In this series, scholars from Yale’s ‘Boswell factory’ have attempted to reproduce all Boswell’s letters, journals and associated manuscripts, annotated with explanations and further detail, in three sets of books: 1. Correspondence, 2. Journals, 3. Life of Johnson (Manuscript Edition) and a fourth, a catalogue of all papers in three volumes. Think of this series as the mid-layer between what are called the Trade Journals (Boswell’s journals edited for a general reader) and Boswell’s original journal manuscripts. I think of it all like this: Boswell’s original thoughts > His original journals (written from 1760-1795) > Trade Edition journals (published from 1950 – 1989) > Research Editions (published from 1966 – still being published, the latest in 2022)…there will one day probably be a digitised archive of all Boswell papers, so researchers can view any page on a computer in hi-def. I spent the next hour flicking through, comparing and reading Introductions. Then I got the call from my wife: the hairdresser experience was not good. Boswell would have to wait.
Genius Fan 
Eighteenth century fans: Leave your comments here