Boswell's Presumptuous Task - Hardcover

An exhilarating book about James Boswell - the father of modern biography. The man who, most of all, wanted to be like his 'mental physician' Samuel Johnson. This entertaining and provocative book uniquely concentrates on the years after Johnson's death, during which Boswell, through all his trials and sorrows, remained dedicated to the task of depicting his friend 'more completely than any man who has ever yet lived'. Sisman writes brilliantly and thoroughly, about troubling biographicalissues of intrusiveness, discretion, authenticity and biographical 'truth'. Whilst also challenging the rules of autobiography, as this Boswell biography was quarried from his own extraordinary revealing journals.