These letters chart the friendship between Boswell and the man he called his "most intimate friend", William Johnson Temple. Covering the period from Boswell and Temple's student days at Edinburgh University until their mid-30s, the dialogue reveals the two men's thoughts on their families, ambitions, sex-life and friendship. Each is the other's "brother confessor" and the letters provide glimpses into Boswell's personality and the subjective life of an 18th-century country parson.