Tag: Scotland
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Boswell’s Romantic Heart Beats as he Leaves Scotland in 1762
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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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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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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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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Choosing a biography of Flora Macdonald
Take a guess: How many biographies are there of Flora Macdonald? (My guess is at the bottom of this post.) She sealed her fame as one of Britain’s most romantic heroines when she chose to help Bonnie Prince Charlie evade capture by government soldiers in June 1746. He was on…
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Scottish Enlightenment? Herman: Yes! Porter: …no
Popular history authors Roy Porter and Arthur Herman have opposing views on whether or not there was a Scottish Enlightenment. American Arthur Herman says there was, and to back it up wrote a book called The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World. British Roy Porter says there…
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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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Discover Boswell and Johnson’s Hotel in Montrose
Day 4 (Tuesday 22 July) Kudos to Montrose! You helpfully added an information plaque just inside a passageway indicating a James Boswell and Samuel Johnson hotspot. Here we have the location of the accommodation used by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson on their tour of Scotland in 1773. In his…
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Boswell’s Options for a Journey to London were on Foot, on Hoof or by Wheel
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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The 250th Anniversary of Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
It’s 250 years ago this year that the Eighteenth century’s literary celebrity Samuel Johnson published his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, an account of a three-month tour he made there in 1773 with his great friend James Boswell. It was actually published on 18 January 1775, and that…