James Boswell revolutionized the art of biography by providing a vivid, detailed, and intimate portrait of his subject, the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson. His journals, which were discovered long after his death, provided historians with an extraordinarily candid record of 18th-century life and his own colorful personality. A friend to many of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, Boswell was a master of dialogue and an observer of the human comedy. His name has become synonymous with a constant companion who records every word and deed of a great person.