James Boswell was an 18th Century Scot who was fond of the bottle and of great men's society. Because he was also a writer of talent and because he turned his admiring passion to such good account, he wrote what is still the world's best-known biography (The Life of Samuel Johnson). Like all literary men Boswell left behind him quantities of manuscript and unpublished writing. Boswell's descendants were gentry, and did not propose to add any more fuel to their ancestor's reputation, already to their minds a little too lurid. From one...
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