When were James Boswell’s long-lost private papers recovered?

The long-lost private papers of James Boswell were primarily recovered during the 1920s.1

The discovery began in 1927 when American manuscript collector Ralph Heyward Isham located a significant portion of the documents at Malahide Castle near Dublin, held by Boswell’s great-great-grandson, the 6th Baron Talbot de Malahide. Over the following two decades, Isham continued to reassemble the collection by uncovering additional manuscripts in attics and other hidden locations at Malahide Castle and Fettercairn House in Scotland.21

Separately, another portion of the papers was discovered in Aberdeenshire by Professor Claude Colleer Abbott. These various collections were eventually united and sold to Yale University, which initiated a systematic, multivolume publication of the materials under the editorship of Frederick A. Pottle beginning in 1950.12