About this title: Book by Samuel Johnson, published in 1775. The Journey was the result of a three-month trip to Scotland that Johnson took with James Boswell in 1773. It contains Johnson's descriptions of the customs, religion, education, trade, and agriculture of a society that was new to him. The account in Boswell's diary, published after Johnson's death as The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785), offers an intimate personal record of Johnson's behavior and conversation during the trip.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Viking Pr, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780140432213ISBN:0140432213
Description: Good. Trade Paperback--Good--2 Books in 1--Other than some minor marginalia, book is bright and tight with only slightest of wear. 429 pages. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780140432213ISBN:0140432213
Description: New. Clean, crisp & tight, never read. NO-remainder mark! Various creases on front cover. Books may have a remainder mark on bottom of text block. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780140432213ISBN:0140432213
Description: Good. --All NEW items are exactly as provided by the publisher. All USED items are in Good condition or better, and copies may contain store stickers, highlighting, etc from normal use by previous owner(s). One-time use supplements (e.g., access codes, tear-out flash cards, reference cards, etc) provided with new copies are NOT guaranteed. --Professional booksellers: inquiries always welcome. read more
Description: Good. 0140432213 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780140432213ISBN:0140432213
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. has spine creases and tanning; clean, tight, unmarked. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 432 p. Penguin English Library. Audience: General/trade. read more
"Good fun. Two, Johnson and Boswell, share their visit to the desolate islands of Scotland.Their journey took place in the 18th century. I wonder if it has changed much. Surprised how much migration from the region impacted the society."
"Johnson observes Scotland and its islands while Boswell observes Johnson. Boswell must be the original groupie and certainly hung on every word of Johnson's no matter how trivial. The prose style is of its time, which helps a lot because both these men could spin a yarn."
"Right, I promise I will put a book up soon that I didn't have to read for English, but since we had one almost every week, I haven't had time for reading much else lately, and they're also the ones on my shelves. As for "Journey to the Western Islands", there's a lot more to say about it than you'd think. To some extent, it really is just a fairly long and sometimes tedious catalogue of road conditions and food eaten. Maybe I'm biased as I'm currently in Scotland (and he visisted St Andrews, where I am), but I found it actually quite interesting. Johnson was traveling round Scotland at a time of great change. You can see the great clash of cultures from the gentrified Edinburgh and well-kept roads of the lowlands, to the roadless and wild Highlands. The Highlands were vast and fairly empty at the time thanks to the Highland Clearances, but what little there was left was like a throwback from a much earlier century. Even in Johnson's time their languages and customs were being lost and stamped out, so it's interesting to read about the last hold-outs. Another layer of interest lies in the fact that the account is by Johnson, who was an older man who had never really ventured far from London before, so his perspective as an outsider mirrors that of the reader. Oh dear, I need to stop this. You can tell I revised this one for my exam. But bear with me for one more point. I would recommend reading "A Tour of the Hebrides" and Henry Boswell's biography of Johnson along with this one, and the first tells the story of the same trip, and the second tells the story of the man himself. Boswell was about half the age of Johnson, yet chose to follow him around and devote much of his life to making sure people would remember who this guy was. This leads me to believe that Johnson must have been pretty darn interesting, and makes me want to read more about him. Anyway, I'm stopping now."
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