Why did Samuel Johnson believe that daily details mattered in biography?

Samuel Johnson believed that the inclusion of minute, daily details was essential to the art of biography because such details are necessary to re-create a living character. He argued that the business of the biographer is to display these everyday particulars, as they provide the texture of a life and allow the subject to be seen as they really were.1

Johnson’s philosophy emphasized that a subject did not need to be of exalted fame to be worthy of a biography; rather, the focus on the reality of daily existence helped capture the essence of the individual. This approach, which he practiced and advocated, is a cornerstone of the biographical method that James Boswell famously employed in his The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., where he meticulously recorded Johnson’s conversations, behaviors, and personal interactions to elicit the living personality of his subject.1