The task in question is the one for which Boswell is remembered: his monumental life of Dr Johnson, which probably is more widely read today than Johnson's own writings. Even in its own day it was highly controversial, and the extent to which Boswell was actually close to Johnson has been debated; there were longish periods during which they seem scarcely to have seen one another. Johnson was for Boswell a father-figure (he got on badly with his own father), an intellectual giant, a steadfast Christian when he himself was wracked with doubts, a man with moral self-mastery while Boswell was weak and dissipated. All this combined into a form of hero-worship through which a standard masterpiece of biography was created. When we think of Johnson today, it is usually through Boswell's optics. The complex story of its slow creation is an absorbing one, well told and well documented.