A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Totally Explained

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A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) is a travel narrative by Samuel Johnson about an eighty-three day journey through Scotland, in particular the islands of the Hebrides, in the late summer and autumn of 1773. The sixty-three year-old Johnson was accompanied by his thirty-two year-old friend of many years James Boswell, who was also keeping a record of the trip, published in 1785 as A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The two narratives are often published as a single volume from which profit can be had comparing the two perspectives of the same events, although they're very different in approach, with Johnson focused on Scotland and Boswell focused on Johnson (Boswell went on to write a famous biography of Johnson).

Scotland

Scotland was still a relatively wild place in 1773. Marauding privateers and slave-ships worked the coasts (seven slavers were reported in 1774 alone); the destruction of Scottish forests was in full swing; the Scottish clan system was in decay; Scotch whisky was distilled illegally and profusely (Johnson noted the custom of drinking whisky before breakfast). Johnson and Boswell were astounded when they visited their colleague Lord Monboddo at Monboddo House and saw him in his primitive attire as a farmer, a quite different picture from his image as an urbane Edinburgh Court of Session jurist, philosopher and evolutionary thinker.
   But this part of Scotland in 1773 was also a romantic place - it was relatively empty of people and nearly unspoiled by commerce, roads, and other trappings of modern life - he noted that in some Highland islands money hadn't yet become custom. Indeed with no money or roads parts of Scotland were more akin to the 8th century than 18th. Once Johnson reached the Highlands, a little west of Loch Ness, there were few roads, none at all on the Isle of Skye, and so they traveled by horseback, usually along the ridge of a hill with a local guide who knew the terrain and the best route for the season. "Journies made in this manner are rather tedious and long. A very few miles requires several hours."
   Johnson came to Scotland to see the primitive and wild, but Scotland by 1773 was already changing quickly, and he feared they'd come "too late". But they did see some of the things they sought out, such as one gentleman wearing the traditional plaid skirt, and bagpipe playing - but none of the martial spirit Scotland was so famous for, except in relics and stories. Johnson records and comments on many things about Scottish life, including the happiness and health of the people, antiquities, the economy, orchards and trees, whisky, language, dress, architecture, religion, language, education.
   Johnson had spent most of his life in London, and only travelled for the first time in 1771.
   In England there was a lot of interest about Scotland, and Johnson's wasn't the first to report on it, notably Thomas Pennant's A Tour in Scotland in 1769 was published in 1771, which was far more detailed and lengthy than Johnson's account. Pennant set a new standard in travel literature, Johnson said of Pennant "he's the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than anyone else does."

Sources

There are many editions available in print, out of print, online, in hardcover and paperback. Listed here are some notable unusual editions of interest.

Pat Rogers, ed. (1993). Johnson and Boswell in Scotland. Yale University Press. The two accounts are presented side-by-side, page-by-page. ISBN 978-0300052107
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, scanned page images, online first edition.
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, scanned book, 1791 edition. Internet Archive
. Plain text and HTML versions.
Donald MacNicol. Remarks on Dr. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides; in which are contained observations on the antiquities, language, genius, and manners of the Highlanders of Scotland. London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1779. From Internet Archive.

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