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James Boswell (Dictionary of World Biography: The 17th and 18th Centuries)

Early Life

James Boswell was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell of Ayrshire, a judge who, when raised to the bench of Scotland’s highest court, took the courtesy title of Lord Auchinleck. Both James’s parents descended from upper-class families with connections not only with nobility but also with royalty. His mother was weak and timid, while his father was a somber, stern disciplinarian who wanted his firstborn to follow him in a legal career and looked with consistent disfavor on both James’s writing and his preference of London’s society to Scotland’s. The contour...

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