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Although he only knew Johnson for just 425 days over a period of 21 years, after meeting in a Covent Garden bookshop in 1763, Boswell's rapacious memory and devotion to his master (he had something of a father-figure fixation) saw him put together a Life which was to be "in scenes", so that the reader could observe Johnson in all his pomp--and faults. Stuffed full of conversation snippets, the inclusion of which scandalised many of those quoted, a defining moment for the genre, Sisman writes of this hugely fallible Scottish facilitator, the original "clubable" gentleman, that his Johnson "is a heroic expression of Boswell himself": depressive, hypochondriac, heavily in debt, with a continuous hangover and full of the pox from whoring. And his sympathetic study largely supports his assertion, though wisely asserting the largely unsung role of Irish Shakespearean scholar, Edmond Malone, Boswell's own "Boswell", in judiciously editing the text to help conjure, as well as remember, Johnson. Sisman's own writing is marvellous, measuring a mischievous indulgence of his subject's "ticklish mind" (Johnson's observation), against a sharp, articulate organising of his sources and a sympathy for the nitty-gritty of biographical writing and book production. Though the Doctor would inevitably have found fault, one senses that Bozzy would approve of this lively return from his legacy. --David Vincent
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