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 diaries, she was one of the first women to produce works on philology and history. First published in 1788 - two years after her groundbreaking Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, which anticipated Boswell's biography - these letters offer a captivating glimpse into their daily lives and concerns. Volume 1 covers the period 1765 to 1777.

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 diaries, she was one of the first women to produce works on philology and history. First published in 1788 - two years after her groundbreaking Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, which anticipated Boswell's biography - these letters offer a captivating glimpse into their daily lives and concerns. Volume 2 covers the period 1777 to 1784.

Highly educated and accustomed to intellectual society, the writer and woman of letters 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. As well as her letters, poetry, essays, memoirs and travel diaries (several of which are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection), she was one of the first women to produce works on philology and history. Originally published in 1833, this highly readable volume of recollections by the writer and translator Edward Mangin (1772-1852) draws on her letters to him and his family (as well as on other memorabilia), extracts from which are quoted extensively in the work.