In 1773 James Boswell, using his social connections to procure invitations from clan chiefs and Edinburgh literati, finally persuaded the elderly Samuel Johnson to make a three-month tour up the east coast of Scotland, via Aberdeen and Inverness to Skye, Mull and other islands, to Boswell's ancestral home at Auchinleck, and back to Edinburgh, which he duly reported in contemporary newspapers. Boswell's original journal, rediscovered in 1930, is as usual less concerned with place – important towns such as Inverness and Aberdeen are hardly described – than with objects suggestive of antiquity or Gaelic feudal life, stories of the Second Sight; the romantic Hebridean scenes that would enrapture nineteenth-century travellers provoke little real enthusiasm. He focuses instead on the…
487 words
Citation: McGowan, Ian. "Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4347, accessed 25 November 2024.]
