The Intimate Letters of Piozzi and Pennington

Although better known for her letters to men of standing such as Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi's letters to Penelope Pennington (nee Weston) show a much more intimate side of the woman of whom Boswell said 'to hear you is to hear Wisdom, to see you is to see Virtue'. The letters start a few years after Hester's second marriage to the Italian singer Gabriel Mario Piozzi (her first husband, Henry Thrale, died in 1781) and continue up to a few days before her death in 1821, although with a complete break between 1804 and 1819. The letters provide an irreverent and intimate account of the life of a wealthy Georgian lady, the trials and tribulations of her family life and the prejudices and curiosities of the society within which she moved. This edition provides not only the letters which were sent to 'my dearest Mrs Pennington' but also an interesting and comprehensive account of the circumstances under which they were written and the background of the colourful characters who are scattered throughout the work....