Inasmuch as the Boswell family papers are now in a
private American library, it is not surprising that the first exhaustive account of Boswell's writings should have been prepared by an American scholar. Mr. F. A. Pottle, of Yale, is to be con- gratulated on his elaborate and interesting bibliography, entitled The Literary Career of James Boswell, Esq. (Clarendon Press, 42s.), and illustrated with many facsimiles. The book throws much light on the queer, vain, clever and yet exasperat- ing author of the best biography in our language. Mr. Pottle exaggerates in suggesting that Boswell's published work may have exceeded Johnson's in quantity. Yet it is possibly true that Boswell, by virtue of his book on Corsica, was better known on the Continent in 1769 than Dr. Johnson was. It is beyond dispute that Boswell had an established literary reputation long before he published his Tour to the Hebrides, in 1785, and his Life of Samuel Johnson, in 1791. The book will be invaluable to all Boswellians and Jolmsonians.
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