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James Boswell summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see James Boswell.
Boswell, detail of an oil painting from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1786; in the National Portrait Gallery, London
Boswell, detail of an oil painting from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1786; in the National Portrait Gallery, London

James Boswell, (born Oct. 29, 1740, Edinburgh, Scot.—died May 19, 1795, London, Eng.), Scottish friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. Boswell, a lawyer, met Johnson in 1763 and visited him often (1772–84), making a superlatively detailed record in his journals of Johnson’s conversations. His two-volume Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) is regarded as one of the greatest English biographies. His Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785) is mainly an account of Johnson’s responses to their 1773 trip to Scotland. The 20th-century publication of Boswell’s journals showed him to have been also one of the world’s greatest diarists.