The Enduring Work of Biography: James Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 1791-2020

The Enduring Work of Biography seeks to revitalize appreciation of Boswell’s great biography for a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers. Engaging accessibly and informatively with biographical, historical, critical, and textual matters, and drawing on the Yale Edition of the Private Papers of James Boswell, Enduring Work discusses Boswell’s collaboration with others (both alive and dead) in researching, writing, revising, proofing, publishing, and promoting his biography of Johnson. Central to Boswell’s concept of life writing, is memory, and Enduring Work highlights both its dynamic and collaborative force in the Life of Johnson. This collection is book-ended by an introduction that considers the critical reception of the Life of Johnson, and an epilogue that suggests its continuing critical insight and relevance. A closing chapter and two appendixes survey the history of the Life of Johnson as a best-selling book for over two centuries, an extraordinary collaboration between readers and publishers, and between Boswell and Johnson themselves that is still evolving.