Boswell's Presumptuous Task

Acclaimed biographer Adam Sisman provides a fascinating and original account of James Boswell's seven-year struggle to write the Life of Johnson, following Samuel Johnson's death in 1784. Sisman's intellectually exhilarating book unpicks the Life of Johnson. Here is a dazzling exploration of the interplay between biography and autobiography, between reputation and character, between art and authenticity, between literature and life - and a dramatic unfolding of the stuggle for mastery between biographer and subject. Boswell's Presumptuous Task shows movingly how a man who failed in almost everything came to write one of the greatest biographies; the triumphant legacy of a foolish man with a great heart.