Elwin`s articles on Boswell and Johnson were published in the "Quarterly Review" in March 1854 and January 1859.

The articles have been bound together in cloth covers and interleaved. Many of the pages have been marked with corrections and alterations. Certain passages have been re-worked on the interleaves.

The articles were republished in Elwin`s, "Some XVIII century men of letters", under the following introduction :

"Dr. Johnson was Whitwell Elwin`s favourite literary character, and Boswell`s Johnson his favourite book. Early in 1857, when he was looking out for some work which would divert his mind from domestic sorrow, he proposed "Boswell and Johnson" to Murray, as a subject for an article. Soon after this he was on a visit to John Forster, in London, and the latter suggested to him that it would be useful to explain how such a "trivial creature" as Boswell seemed, had been able to bring out "the gravity and wisdom of Johnson" as he had done in his celebrated Life. Elwin did this in a paper, which appeared in the Quarterly Review of March, 1858, under the title of "Boswell - early Life of Johnson." The literary part of Johnson`s life was reserved for a sequel, called "The Life and Writings of Johnson", published in January, 1859. This second article especially attracted attention, and the praise it received induced Murray to express a wish to bring out the two essays in a separate form. Elwin took to the idea, but he did not work at it definitely till 1863, when he began a systematic revision, which amounted almost to rewriting the first article at considerably greater length. He then paused in his task, and did not resume it, so that the second paper was left with only some occasional additions. As, however, it was originally cast on a somewhat larger scheme than the first, this does not make any serious disproportion between the scale of the two, which are now printed together, in the shape in which he finally left them. ..."

"To his revised version Elwin appended copious references. The editions he used were Boswell`s Johnson, with [John Wilson] Croker`s additions, I vol., 1860; the Johnsoniana, in the 1835 edition of Boswell; Johnson`s Works, by Murphy, ed. 1801; Cunningham`s edition of the Lives of the Poets, 1854. ..."