The general correspondence of James Boswell, 1766-1769 /

Interest in Boswell is flourishing, perhaps encouraged by the now nearly complete Yale editions of the Boswell papers and correspondence. The General Correspondence, the first volume in a planned two-volume set within the massive Boswell project, and volume 5 in the research edition of the correspondence, includes correspondence with 115 individuals during the years between Boswell's return from his grand tour and December 1767. Excluded is correspondence with those who appear in earlier volumes in the series (The Correspondence of James Boswell with Certain Members of The Club, CH, Feb'77, and The Correspondence of James Boswell with David Garrick, Edmund Burke, and Edmond Malone, 1987). Collected in the present volume are the best texts of the letters to and from Boswell in either original manuscript or printed versions, including notations on the the content of other letters known to have been written even though no known texts are extant. The letters are printed in chronological sequence with addresses, dates of receipt, postmarks, correspondents' annotations, and very copious explanatory footnotes by the editors. For the Boswell specialist and the researcher of the 18th century, this addition to available resources is--as has been said many times of the whole Boswell publication enterprise--indispensable. Libraries supporting more generalized programs or primarily lower-division undergraduate studies may not need this part of the correspondence. However, Boswell: Citizen of the World, Man of Letters, which is clearly a product of the interest and revaluation of Boswell resulting from the Yale series, offers enough new insights and sound judgments about the life and artistry of the great biographer to recommend it to undergraduates and advanced scholars alike. Lustig's introduction nicely points out how the 12 essays--five of them by scholars who edited volumes in the Boswell series--connect Boswell's intellectual interests and his social life with characteristics of his style and his biographical preeminence. Much of this book illuminates the Boswell-Johnson relationship, of course, but it also deals with other personalities, and with 18th-century life as experienced or viewed by Boswell. Recommended for libraries collecting in the areas of English, Scottish, and European literature and the social and intellectual history of the middle and late 18th century. A. E. Jones Jr.; emeritus, Drew University