Today, is the day we celebrate all biographers. Notably, we celebrate the meeting between James Boswell and Samuel Johnson at Tom Davies’ bookshop. Boswell’s Attempts to meet Johnson On 16 May 1763, James Boswell met the man whose name would forever be tied to his own, Dr Samuel Johnson. Johnson was the leading moralist, essayist, critic, author and lexicographer of…
With the weekend coming up, I am looking forward to putting down my research books and reading something a little lighter. I normally have a couple of books on the go and I am currently reading work by Doerr and Rubenhold. I am absolutely loving the stunning, lyrical language in Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. The imagery,…
History depends on documents. During my research on Mary Bryant and her family’s inheritance, I have trawled archives, but there are various documents that I have yet to track down. Some are supposed lost to history, but I live in hope that they will be found. Do you know where any of the following are to be found? If so,…
Frances Burney, later Madame D’Arblay, wrote the well-known books, Evelina, Cecilia and Camilla. As well as writing her views on Boswell in letters and her diaries, Fanny also left behind one of the earliest accounts of a mastectomy in a letter to her sister, Esther, written on March 22 1812. Frances Burney Feared Breast Cancer In 1810, Frances, while living…
I first came across Mary Bryant’s story on a trip to Sydney in 1987. I had flown from London, but Mary had sailed from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 on board the Charlotte, one of eleven ships that comprised the First Fleet. The fleet sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and through the perils of the Southern Ocean to…
