Boswell’s Presumptuous Task

James Boswell died a disappointed man, considered by his contemporaries to be a “foolish failure”. Yet today his “Life of Johnson” is esteemed as the template for modern biography and Boswell himself is regarded as a formidable, if somewhat anti-heroic intellect in his own right. Sisman provides not only an account of Boswell’s life but a creative investigation into how Boswell managed to be simultaneously so risible and outstanding and, by extension, an investigation into the nature of biographers and biography. Making use of Boswell’s letters and journals (only recently uncovered and unhindered by the constraints of academia), Sisman’s book depicts Boswell and the 18th-century world he lived in with clarity and frankness.