Genius Fan

Today, Genius Fan celebrates its 1st birthday. I’m really pleased that it’s reached this far. It started off as a way to force myself to sketch by setting the challenge of drawing two scenes each week as a way of improving my illustration skills. And the idea was to post them to a blog so I could see the improvement. That quickly changed into full-blown posts and here am I now writing a post on an Eighteenth century topic twice a week. There’s an adage I heard some time ago which says, something like, ‘the best way to learn something is to teach it’. The lesson in here is that teaching a topic forces you to learn it inside out. And since I’m a newcomer to history as a hobby, I’ve got a lot of learning to do.

A lot of posts have been James Boswell-related, but there’s also a number of posts that derive from Samuel Johnson’s social circle, the Club. Lately, I’ve been focusing on my season about the Prime Ministers of the Eighteenth century called PM’s on the Pan, and I share a range of observations about my book collecting and books in general. I hope readers find these posts and illustrations interesting. I’ve got plans to improve the blog, move it up a notch so to speak, in 2026, and that makes the exercise even more enjoyable. So, thanks for visiting, keep reading and show your support with likes and comments.

Want to ping me a message? You can do so at: sam@geniusfan.co.uk .