Highly educated and accustomed to intellectual society, the writer Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741–1821) became a close friend of Samuel Johnson through her first husband, the brewer Henry Thrale. Her second marriage, to the Italian musician Gabriel Mario Piozzi in 1784, estranged her from Johnson, but following his death she published her groundbreaking Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, anticipating Boswell's biography. In addition to publishing essays, memoirs, poetry and travel diaries, she was one of the first women to produce works on philology and history. Edited by the essayist Abraham Hayward (1801–84) and incorporating correspondence and other writings, this two-volume work offers a valuable insight into the life of an important woman of letters and how she was perceived by contemporaries and posterity. Reissued here is the enlarged second edition of 1861. Volume 1 is devoted to Hayward's biographical essay and critique of her works.
