Just finished reading this book by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. While a lot of it is written in old english its still easy enough to figure out. It gives a fantastic insight into Scotland circa 1775. While Dr Johnson does go into a lot of things in great detail, I personally find him a pompous ,arrogant slob while Boswell seems a more "down to earth" type. The first section of the book is Johnsons notes , while the second half is from Boswells perspective.
Just started reading also "A tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides,1772" by Thomas Pennant and am having trouble understanding this as there is a lot of mispelling and strange words of which I am not familiar but as far as I know Pennant describes his Journey in much greater detail than Johnson.

I've read Johnson's Journey and as you say Colin, Johnson comes across as being arrogant and pompous... but at the same time he seems to say it as he sees it! As for Boswell, while I have only read a bit of his Journal I get the impression his travelling companion can do or say no wrong in his eyes! There's a copy of Johnson's book on Scot Sites eBooks and I have Boswell's book almost ready to be added; I am thinking of combining the two so that you would be able to read both together, but will need to work out what goes where!

I've also got copies of Pennant's two Tours (from 1769 and 1772) that i hope to get added on to Scot Sites at some point in the future, but these need a lot of work to get them formatted (as do similar books by Daniel Defoe!)

I forgot to mention that about Boswell's perception of Johnson. He does seem in awe of him. Its as if he sees him through " rose tinted glasses" lol. Also I have read this on my Sony reader as a downloaded ebook and Boswell's journal seems totally mixed up. I dont know whether its due to a mistake from the technical transfer but the whole timeline of the journey is hap-hazard!

We've got Bosell's account here:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/u ... index.html
and Johnson's here:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/u ... index.html

What's interesting is that Johnson's account was published less than two years after their journey, while Boswell's was published 13 years after the journey, as a precursor to his now famed biography of Johnson, which was published five years later.

What's also interesting is that although Johnson does come over from his account as being the sort of person you'd go out of your way to avoid, Boswell was an outrageous womaniser and alcoholic. If you know much about Boswell's personal weaknesses, it's difficult to read either of their accounts without wondering just what got left out.

Meanwile, having been familiar with the texts in electronic format, I got a hardback compilation of their two accounts for my birthday, so am very much looking forward to reading them as a book: though I've yet to decide whether to do so one account before the other, or alternating chapters to give a clearer idea of their differing perspectives of each stage of their journey.

Atlantic73: my recollection is that the Gutenberg versions keep the timeline in order so yours may have got garbled in download. Bruce: we've discussed the problems with the Pennants, but there is an good electronic version of Defoe available, which we used as the basis for this: http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/u ... index.html

I have to admit Bruce I was totally unaware of the 1769 journey. I have searched for more information online for it but can only get places that sell the book. Have you any idea of the route he took for this and is this the one featured in "great british journeys" with Nicholas Crane on the BBC?

To be honest with you Colin, I haven't read much from either of Pennant's tours. The problem, at this moment, I don't have my own copy and the only one I can find online doesn't have an index! One of the problems with converting it for use on Scot Sites is the use of the long s, which basically looks like the letter f; for example, the books starts in Chester:



The only way to make it really legible would be to continually refer back to the online copy and change each word in turn... or maybe even type it from scratch; neither option really appeals to me just now!

Anyway, to answer your question, I don't know what route Pennant followed in 1769, but Crane definitely used the 1772 book.

Strangely enough, that was the only episode I saw of the Great British Journeys series, tho the last one was also set in Scotland; this time Crane was following HV Morton's Search for Scotland!

Another Nicholas Crane series I would like to see more of is Map Man; I saw the episode featuring John Ogilby’s Britannia (1675), but missed William Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland (1747-53), Timothy Pont's Maps of Scotland (c1583) and MacKenzie's Chart of the Orkney Islands (1748) (and some of the other episodes might have featured parts of Scotland!)

Still on the subject of Crane's travel programmes, episodes 2 and 3 of Nicholas Crane's Britannia: The Great Elizabethan Journey were set in Scotland and Ireland respectively; this time Crane was using William Camden's Britannia!