Books: From Bozzy the Boozer to Literary Great A Life of James Boswell by Peter Martin Weidenfeld Pounds 25

Bostridge, Mark, The Independent (London, England)

`He had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory," the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote of James Boswell in his infamous 1831 essay on Boswell's Life of Johnson. "These qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but, as he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal."

Macaulay's paradoxes about Boswell - in essence, that if he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer - contributed to Boswell's posthumous reputation as a buffoon. Bozzy the boozer, the libertine, the sot had nonetheless managed to write one of the literary …

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Publication information: Article title: Books: From Bozzy the Boozer to Literary Great A Life of James Boswell by Peter Martin Weidenfeld Pounds 25. Contributors: Bostridge, Mark - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: August 15, 1999. Page number: 10. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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