A review by chris_tyson
To the Hebrides: Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands and James Boswell's Journal of a Tour, by Samuel Johnson, James Boswell
4.0
This is an enjoyable tour of Scotland in a period of flux, not long after the Jacobite uprisings and before the Industrial Revolution changed everything. I’d say that Boswell is the more entertaining writer of the two, but the pair of them together are the original double-act. It is great to have Johnson’s and Boswell’s accounts presented together, may they never be separated.
Good lord the notes though. I find it hard to ignore references, but there are so many (999) they destroy the flow of the book. Some are interesting, hundreds would be of interest only to a scholar, hundreds seem irrelevant to anyone. That’s my opinion anyway.
Good lord the notes though. I find it hard to ignore references, but there are so many (999) they destroy the flow of the book. Some are interesting, hundreds would be of interest only to a scholar, hundreds seem irrelevant to anyone. That’s my opinion anyway.