"This volume contains the surviving correspondence of James Boswell, who became ninth laird of Auchinleck in Ayrshire in 1782, with his estate overseers James Bruce (1719-90) and Andrew Gibb (1767-1839). Bruce, succeeding his father, served the estate from 1741 until his death. Relations between Bruce and the Auchinleck family were close and long standing, and Bruce, twenty-one years Boswell's senior, was an avuncular friend and tutor to Boswell in his youth, mediating the vexed relationship between him and his father and playing an integral part in Boswell's education in estate management. Gibb, just 22 when appointed to succeed Bruce, enjoyed a less close but still cordial relationship with the laird, and eventually served Boswell, his son, and his grandson, for a total of 46 years. The letters in this volume present Boswell in a light perhaps new to those who know him as diarist, advocate, and biographer of Samuel Johnson. He appears here as one of the 'gentleman improvers' of a largely agricultural south-western Scotland on the brink of the Industrial Revolution, and the volume, a contribution to regional social and economic history, offers an extensive and detailed case study of estate life and management during this important transitional period."--BOOK JACKET.