Alexander Linklater

The Salt Path author wrote secret first book despite claiming she was debut writer bbc.in/4cYRXQa

Today on @TheRestHistory, the greatest road trip in British literary history. Dr Johnson - the most English person in the entire history of England - accompanies his devoted friend, the proudly Scottish JAMES BOSWELL, to THE HEBRIDES. Hilarity ensues!

"The 6th biggest economy in the world is run by infantile fantasists with no understanding of financial markets.... There's nothing progressive about driving the economy of a cliff"📉⛰️ @LiamHalligan @ #BattleFest 2025 "From steel to railways: can the state revitalise British industry?"👨‍🏭🚆 👇

@holland_tom has just posted (on the @TheRestHistory e-mail-out) the quintessentially Boswellian passage about how our flawed biographer-hero socially engineers an encounter between the arch Tory Samuel Johnson and the radical Whig John Wilkes. It reveals not only the comedy of the scene, the politics of the age and the character of the participants, but the quality of Boswell's understanding – and enjoyment – of human nature: "Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chymistry, which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person." But as he artfully manipulates a resistant Johnson out on the town to get him into a taxi on his way to dinner – where he will find himself charmed by Wilkes – it's a Boswellian punchline that steals the establishing shot. "When I had [Dr Johnson] fairly seated in a hackney-coach with me, I exulted as much as a fortune-hunter who has got an heiress into a post-chaise with him to set out for Gretna-Green." Johnson and Wilkes then bond over jokes about Scotland (with Boswell stoutly defending the homeland) and everyone goes home happy, with the Irish philosopher congratulating the Scotch rake on his diplomatic conquest: "Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful negotiation; and pleasantly said, that 'there was nothing to equal it in the whole history of the Corps Diplomatique.'"

@ARLinklater Ossian & the Scottish Enlightenment will both be featuring - hopefully - in future episodes. But I was sad to have omitted Savage and Wilkes