Originally published by Boswell under the pseudonym The Hypochondriack as a series of seventy essays in The London Magazine between 1777-1783.
Today, the Hypochondriack essays are among the least known of those works by Boswell that were originally published in his own lifetime. The collected essays were published in two editions in the 20th century, but in the words of R. G. Walker, "[e]ven the most rabid Boswellian [...] would admit that neither the two-volume edition nor the condensed version has sparked a revival of interest in these essays." 1
- 1Walker, Robert G. (2010) 'Addenda and Corrigenda to the Annotations of the Bailey Edition of Boswell's "Hypochondriack"'; English Studies, 91:3, 274 - 288.
The Hypochondriack essays have been published twice by Margery Bailey: "The Hypochondriack" (1928) was a heavily annotated two-volume work, about which one reviewer (R. S. Crane in Modern Philology) wrote that "in her zeal to leave nothing undone she has done too much. We could certainly spare some of her notes." The later one volume "Boswell's Column" (1951) contained all the original essays, but the introduction had been much reduced compared to the 1928 edition. 1
- 1Walker, Robert G. (2010) 'Addenda and Corrigenda to the Annotations of the Bailey Edition of Boswell's "Hypochondriack"'; English Studies, 91:3, 274 - 288.