To re-edit the manuscript used for so admired a volume as Frederick A. Pottle’s frequently reissued worldwide bestseller of 1950 was (to borrow the opening of Boswell’s Life of Johnson) an arduous and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task. I have freshly transcribed the manuscript of this portion of Boswell’s diary and private memoranda, and re-researched and reannotated the whole, but while these researches have allowed correction in places in which Pottle’s edition erred, and the filling-in of matters it passed over in editorial silence, they have naturally been helped by the resources of the former Yale Boswell Editions, established under Pottle’s direction and carried on by his collaborators and heirs. For his sustained support of this project – intellectual, moral and practical – I warmly thank the former Yale University deputy provost, Charles Long. I have been able to consult a collection of research notes made by Rufus Reiberg for a planned but not completed volume of Boswell’s earliest journals, a file of post-publication correspondence and other documents connected with Pottle’s edition, and a copy of that edition with some marginal corrections in Pottle’s hand. For assistance with specific research items I am grateful to Brian Allen, Nigel Aston, Rachel Margolis Bond, Marie-Jeanne Colombani, Catherine Dille, Rémy Duthille, Hiba Hafiz, Jacob Sider Jost, James McLaverty, Michele Martinez, Elisa Milkes, Carrie Roider, John Staines, John Stone and Nicholas Wrightson. I am deeply indebted to Marian Homans-Turnbull for some desperately needed last-second scribal assistance. I thank Mark Spicer and Nadine Honigberg for much practical help, and Daniel Gustafson for a careful reading of a draft of text and notes. The work of Bob Davenport included but far exceeded the normal duties of a copy-editor, and his attentions to the later drafts of text and annotation to the first proofs improved the edition in style, substance and accuracy. Most especially, my work for this edition and James J. Caudle’s for the Yale Research Series volume devoted to Boswell’s journals of 1758–63 have enjoyed a particularly fruitful reciprocity. It is a pleasure to record here my admiration for Dr Caudle’s research skills, and appreciation of his generosity. The edition’s errors and infelicities are my own.