Genius Fan

I’m aware that when I travel around Scotland I’m often crossing the path of my literary hero, James Boswell. The most recent example was while I was travelling north up the east coast of Scotland…something Boswell and Samuel Johnson did, but in a carriage, in 1773. I made a short detour from the A90 into the village of Laurencekirk. I jumped out of the car, snatched up my guidebook and marched across the road towards two approaching families. In those few seconds I experienced some small, but enjoyable thrill, off the back of the hard work of editor Ronald Black and his To The Hebrides: Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. That’s my guidebook.

I could be visiting the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, stopping off in Montrose for an ice lolly or buying a second hand car in Forres, but whatever it is, I have in my mind an instance two hundred and fifty years previously when Boswell may have been there or passed through. Even if the roads have changed I know that ’round about here’ is where he would have stood or walked, or trotted by on horseback. I want a bit more accuracy than that and so I use Ronald Black’s book. He’s expanded on the notes from previous editions and he often provides helpful information for tracking down people or places. My paperback copy is dog eared, split down the spine, annotated and bristles with coloured stickers, but it comes with me if I know I’m going somewhere Boswell and his mentor Samuel Johnson visited on their 1773 tour of Scotland. I can tell you it’s pleasurable to park up the car, thumb the book to the relevant page and read the passage, and then, book in hand, approaching someone to ask advice or directions.

I did that in Montrose some weeks ago, and most recently I did it in Laurencekirk to view the site of a hotel Boswell and Johnson stopped off in the village in 1773 (it burned down a few years ago.) I’ll never be in a position to make amazing discoveries like scholars such as Lt Col Ralph Heyward Isham, Claude Colleer Abbott, Richard Holmes or like those described in books by James L Clifford or Richard Altick, but I can follow their researches, and go where they went or see what they described. It’s not detective work, but it is adding an extra dimension to my enjoyment and learning. By leaving the armchair and going to a place I’m getting that historical thrill I’ve been trying to describe since the beginning of this Genius Fan project. You should give it a go. You meet people and see more of the country. And you get the sensation of making a discovery. What could be better? Not much.

Notes
To The Hebrides: Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, (ed) Ronald Black (2007)
From Puzzles to Portraits, James L Clifford (1970)
Scholar Adventurers, Richard D Altick (1950)
Boswell Papers found at Fettercairn, Claude Colleer Abbott (1936)
Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle in the Collection of Lt.-Colonel Ralph Heyward Isham (1928-1936)
This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer, Richard Holmes (2016)