[Gutenberg 2423] • Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. / During the Last Twenty Years of His Life

Hester Lynch Thrale (born Hester Lynch Salusbury and after her second marriage, Hester Lynch Piozzi) (1741- 1821) was a British diarist, author, and patron of the arts. She was a direct descendant of Katheryn of Berain. Her father was John Salusbury. After her father had gone bankrupt in an attempt to invest in Halifax, Canada, she married the rich brewer Henry Thrale in 1763, at St. Anne's Chapel, Soho, London. Following her husband's death (1781), she fell in love with and, in 1784, married Gabriel Mario Piozzi, an Italian music teacher. After Samuel Johnson's death she published Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL. D. (1786) and her letters (1788). Together with her unpublished diaries, these two sources (often referred to by scholars as Thraliana) help to fill out the often biased picture of Johnson presented in Boswell's Life. As Johnson kept close contact with the Thrale household and often worked in Streatham library, Hester's papers provide more insight into his composition process. Her diaries and correspondence are an important source of information about Samuel Johnson and eighteenth-century life.