Category: Travel
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Boswell Got Around – See the Full List of Maps in Yale’s Boswell Trade Editions
Ohhhh, I love a map, me! Maps bring stories to life. If you’re going to read James Boswell’s personal journals then follow along on the maps provided by the editors. I’ve included a list of maps in each of the 14 volumes in the Yale Trade series. Click and read.
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Boswell’s Romantic Heart Beats as he Leaves Scotland
James Boswell loved his native Scotland throughout his life – even while the lure of London and the conviviality and entertainment it promised occupied most of his waking moments. We get a clear glimpse of just how he feels before he set off from Edinburgh on his parent-approved trip to…
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A Lost Boswell Treasure, Rediscovered in my Underpants Drawer
This morning I rediscovered a treasure I bought back in 2023: A 1973 collection of the Picturesque Beauties of Boswell. It’s a squarish pack of twenty prints, copies of etchings made by Eighteenth century artist, illustrator and portraitist Thomas Rowlandson. If you’re a Boswell fan…indeed, a Boswellian, then read this.
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Italian Balloonist Visits Glasgow 240 Years Ago
We went for lunch in Glasgow recently and I made a secret plan (secret from my wife) to park up in the Merchant City and walk to the nearby St Andrew’s in the Square church. I knew it was from here that Italian Vincenzo Lunardi, one of the new breed…
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Sher’s Mighty Book about Books Leads the Way
There are a number of topics I want to write about in the Genius Fan blog, and while I was out dog walking this evening I thought to myself, ‘If I get run over and killed by a bus I’ll regret not having made the time to sketch and write…
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Revealing the Boswell-Johnson Pilgrims
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…
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Crane Required to Lift Birkbeck Hill’s Book
A big book is annoying when it doesn’t fit onto the bookcase, especially if it’s a volume one is particularly proud or fond of. This is the case with George Birkbeck Hill’s Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland). I have a copy. I had to adjust the height of one of…
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Did the Adventurers Land in Kinghorn or Pettycur?
Here’s a scenario: You have a question over a trivial event from history, say the mighty Eighteenth century. It niggles. So what can you do to get an answer? Quickest way is to 1. Search the internet (actually, most stuff from the world isn’t on the internet at all). You…
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A Plaque for Burns, But Not for Boswell
There’s no mention of the visit to the Gardenston Arms Hotel, Laurencekirk, by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson on the commemorative plaque set above the front door of the flats built upon the site of the old hotel. The two travellers visited this hotel located at the northern end of…
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On the Hunt With a Boswell Guidebook
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…
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An Airplane View onto Explorers of 1773
On Wednesday 18 August 1773 a little boat sailed across the Firth of Forth from Leith to Kinghorn, carrying passengers James Boswell, the Scottish lawyer and writer, his servant Joseph Ritter, the hugely famous Samuel ‘Dictionary’ Johnson, and Scots advocate William Nairne. On Thursday 17 July 2025, I departed Edinburgh…
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4 Hour Boswell-Johnson London Walking Tour
Last week I found myself in London with time on my hands, so I devised a short tour of points-of-interest related to that venerable concatenation of Boswell and Johnson. I started early at Paternoster Square in the City and walked it in four hours, but you could do it less…
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Foot, Hoof or Wheel: Scotland to London
There were only three ways to travel between Scotland and London in the Eighteenth century: by foot, on horseback or by wheeled carriage. (Actually, you could take a boat, from Leith for example, but it wasn’t until the 1850s when a person could travel by rail out of Scotland and…
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