In 1762 James Boswell, then twenty-two years old, left Edinburgh for London. The famous Journal he kept during the next nine months is an intimate account of his encounters with the high-life and the low-life in London. Frank and confessional as a personal portrait of the young Boswell, the Journal is also revealing as a vivid portrayal of life in eighteenth-century London. This new edition includes an introduction by Peter Ackroyd, which discusses Boswell's life and achievement.

"Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book."--Peter Ackroyd, from the introduction

Praise for the earlier edition:

"[The journal is] more perceptive and uninhibited and magically alive than one could have hoped. . . . Boswell transforms the most trifling occurrences into adventures, and imparts to the reader his own surpassing lust for experience and his keen sense of the fascination of life."--Austin Wright, Virginia Quarterly Review

"The journal is admirably edited and annotated."--W. H. Auden, New Yorker

The late Frederick Pottle, Sterling Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University, was editor, bibliographer, and biographer of James Boswell. Peter Ackroyd is the author of London The Biography, The Life of Thomas More, Albion The Origins of the English Imagination, and many other books.

AUTHOR

James Boswell

The Life of Samuel Johnson (Penguin Classics)

The Norton Anthology of English Literature

The Life of Samuel Johnson (Everyman's Library)

Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D

To The Hebrides: Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands and James Boswell's Journal of a Tour

London Journal 1762-1763 (Penguin Classics)

Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides With Samuel Johnson, L.L.D. (Konemann Classics)