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Boswell and the Press: Essays on the Ephemeral Writing of James Boswell is the first sustained examination of James Boswell’s ephemeral writing, his contributions to periodicals, his pamphlets, and his broadsides. The essays collected here enhance our comprehension of his interests, capabilities, and proclivities as an author and refine our understanding of how the print environment in which he worked influenced what he wrote and how he wrote it. This book will also be of interest to historians of journalism and the publishing industry of eighteenth-century Britain.
List of contents
1. Boswell’s Ephemeral Writing: An Overview
Donald J. Newman
2. Anonymity and the Press: The Case of Boswell
Paul Tankard
3. James Boswell’s Design for a Scottish Periodical in the Scots Language: The Importance of His Prospectus for the
Sutiman Papers (ca. 1770?)
James J. Caudle
4. Boswell in Broadside
Terry Seymour
5.
An Elegy on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady: Serious Effort or Elaborate Joke?
Donald J. Newman
6. "Making the Press my Amanuensis": Male Friendship and Publicity in
The Cub, at New-market Celia Barnes
7.
The Hypochondriack and Its Context: James Boswell, 1777–1783
Allan Ingram
8. The Embodied Mind of Boswell’s
The Hypochondriack and the Turn-of-the-Century Novel
Jennifer Preston Wilson
9. Principle, Polemic, and Ambition: Boswell’s
A Letter to the People of Scotland and the End of the Fox-North Coalition, 1783
Nigel Aston
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
About the author
DONALD J. NEWMAN is an independent scholar in Texas with research interests in James Boswell and eighteenth-century journalism. He has published numerous articles about Boswell and is the editor of
James Boswell: Psychological Interpretations, The Spectator: Emerging Discourses, and Fair Philosopher: Eliza Haywood and “The Female Spectator.”
Summary
For two centuries, scholars have considered the ephemeral writing of James Boswell - his periodical writing, his pamphlets, and his broadsides - unworthy of serious critical attention because it is too topical, too superficial, or too trivial to advance our study of Boswell or his literary career. This volume challenges that assessment.
