The chapters which make up this book are grouped around two
figures, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, and in particular
around one event. The episode in question was the tour of the
Hebrides and Western Islands of Scotland which the two undertook
in 1773. Its outcome is to be found principally in the remarkable
books which resulted from this undertaking: Johnson Journey to
the Western Islands of Scotland ( 1775), and Boswell Journal of a
Tour to the Hebrides ( 1785). These works do not provide the
exclusive focus of the present book, but one or other is present
throughout.

The theme of this book could also be defined in terms of Johnson
and Boswell's place within the wider world--that is, their
relationship to some external developments during their lifetime.
These include the transformation of Scottish culture in the years
after the second Jacobite rising and the enduring legacy of
Jacobitism; the rapid unfolding of the Scottish Enlightenment; the
opening-up of the world by means of overseas exploration in the
era of Cook and Joseph Banks; the gradual expansion of tourism
beyond the traditional aristocratic grand tour, and the quest for
new locations (including, after this Scottish jaunt, picturesque
Scotland) and the cult of the primitive, where a key role was played
by the prose poems of James Macpherson, which turned Ossian
into a leading figure within European literature and art for decades
to come. There was also the rise of a virulent anti-Scottish feeling
around the time of the North Briton. All these matters surface, in
one way or another, in the text of the two Hebridean narratives,
and each enters the argument of this book, although I have not
attempted to provide a full account of their multiple manifestations
in the thought of the period.

This is not so much a study of the Scottish Enlightenment as such
as a series of readings of Johnson and Boswell in their dealings with
specific matters which surfaced during their trip to the Hebrides.
Again, I do not seek to explore the entire background of travel
literature of the age--this has been well covered by earlier scholars.
Instead, the book concentrates on those aspects of travel which are
relevant to the conception and execution of the tour. These

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