Genius Fan

The earliest account I’ve found of someone following in the footsteps of Boswell and Johnson’s great tour of Scotland in 1773 was that of the great Johnson scholar, George Birkbeck Hill (1835-1903). It’s called Footsteps of Dr Johnson (Scotland), it was published in 1890 and it’s a great big book (see my post about a heavylifting crane, ahem). If anyone knows of an earlier account then please drop me a line. But every once in a while a copy pops up on Ebay or some other secondhand book marketplace. I saw a copy online back in 2023 and snapped it up.

Discovering the Pilgrims

My interest in these characters, I call them Pilgrims (individuals who retrace the 1773 journey of Boswell and Johnson, then write about it and publish it as a book), started in 2023. At the start of that year I read Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785) and Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) for the first time. (It was in the excellent quality Everyman’s Library edition. You can take that anywhere. The volume is solidly built, like a Volvo.) While I was reading these accounts – they’re both terrific, even today – I was also mooching online, researching their adventure when I discovered a book written by Moray Mclaren called The Highland Jaunt. It seems back in post-war 1950s Britain, this fellow decided it would be a good a idea to try to follow in the footsteps of Boswell and Johnson. ‘I was quite taken with this notion. That’s when a sort of obsession began to find and buy all the ‘Footsteps accounts’ – books written by people who had retraced the 1773 journey. This added new dimensions to the narrative of the Eighteenth century tour. It started to feel like an expedition, an odyssey, an escapade, even. The next I discovered was Elizabeth Stucley’s A Hebridean Journey with Johnson and Boswell. While I was reading those books I would trawl the internet for other similar tales (they don’t jump out at you, you have to tweak your search string). I was still finding new accounts throughout the year and into 2024. There may yet be other accounts out there which I haven’t discovered.

In a follow up post I’ll talk about my definition of what qualifies as a Footsteps account. They’re all different. No-one followed the exact same route as Boswell, some did a similar route, but in the opposite direction, most did it in sections, starting and stopping according to the seasons or the requirements of work, some had Johnson in mind, others were focused on Boswell, and some didn’t event leave their home, but sent a photographer on the road instead. To be continued…

I found thirteen ‘Footsteps accounts’, listed below.

‘Footsteps accounts’ I have discovered and own

1. 1890: Footsteps of Dr Johnson (Scotland), George Birkbeck Hill (I own a 1973 reprint)
2. 1910: Our Journey to the Hebrides Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell
3. 1937: Skye High: The Record of a Tour Through Scotland in the Wake of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, EHG Pearson and Hugh Kingsmill
4. 1954: The Highland Jaunt, Moray Mclaren
5. 1956: A Hebridean Journey with Johnson and Boswell, Elizabeth Stucley
6. 1973: Highland Jaunt, Paul Johnson and George Gale
7. 1973: Much entertainment; a visual and culinary record of Johnson and Boswell’s tour of Scotland in 1773, Virginia Maclean
8. 1982: In the Footsteps of Johnson and Boswell, Israel Shenker
9. 1983: A Journey to the Western Isles: Johnson’s Scottish Journey Retraced by Finlay J Macdonald, Finlay J Macdonald
10. 1993: A Walk to the Western Isles: After Boswell and Johnson, Frank Delaney
11. 2011: Boswell’s Bus Pass, Stuart Campbell
12. 2012: Whisky, Kilts and the Loch Ness Monster: Traveling Through Scotland with Boswell and Johnson, William W. Starr
13. 2019: 1773 Scotland: An Illustrated Account of Johnson & Boswell’s Tour – Travelers Edition, Brian C Mack and Karol Mack

NOTE
A highlight of 2025 was buying second editions of Boswell and Johnson’s individual accounts of their tour from 1773. They sit on my bookcase and I eyeball them everyday.