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...

One of the most celebrated individuals of English literature, Samuel Johnson (1709 84) was a defining figure of his age. In addition to his celebrated labours as a lexicographer, Johnson distinguished himself as a poet, essayist, critic, biographer and editor. The writer and society hostess Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741 1821) was an unconventional woman of great intellectual vivacity. She became a close friend of Johnson, whom she met through her first husband, the brewer Henry Thrale, whose ailing business Johnson did much to support. As well as writing essays, poetry, memoirs and travel...