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To the Hebrides

by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell

ISBN: 9781841584676
Imprint: Birlinn
Publication Date: Jul 2007
Format: Paperback
Price: £9.99
Stock Status: not in stock

"Do we really need another book about Boswell and Johnson’s Highland journey? Yes, when it’s this one." - The Scotsman

"It is always pleasurable when a reviewer can recommend a book unreservedly. Congratulations to Ronald Black and Birlinn, To the Hebrides is a stunning achievement." - Northwords Now

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring through the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland as far west as the islands of Skye, Raasay, Coll, Mull, Inchkenneth and Iona. Both kept detailed notes of their impressions, and later published separate accounts of their journey. These works contain some of the finest pieces of travel writing ever produced. They are also magnificent historical documents as well as portraits of two extraordinary men of letters. Together they paint a vivid picture of a society which was still almost unknown to the Europe of the Enlightenment. Entertaining, profound, and marvellously readable, they are a valuable chronicle of a lost age and a fascinating people.

Samuel Johnson became famous as a poet and a moral essayist before completing his most famous project, The Dictionary of the English Language. James Boswell met Samuel Johnson in 1763, when the two began their trip around the Hebrides, and is celebrated not only as Johnson’s biographer but also for the disarming honesty of his personal diaries.

For the first time, Ronald Black’s edition brings together Johnson’s and Boswell’s accounts of each of the six stages of the two men’s journey – Lowlands, Skye, Coll, Mull and back to the mainland. Illustrated with prints by Thomas Rowlandson, it includes a critical introduction, translations of the Latin texts and brief notes.


Formerly a lecturer in Celtic in Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, Ronald Black is Gaelic Editor of The Scotsman and a columnist in the West Highland Free Press. In addition to numerous academic articles he is author or editor of: Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair: The Ardnamurchan Years, An Tuil: Anthology of 20th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse, An Lasair: Anthology of 18th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse, Eilein na h-Òige: The Poems of Fr Allan McDonald and The Gaelic Otherworld.

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