The Piozzi Letters V6: Correspondence of Hester Lynch Piozzi, 1784-1821 (Formerly Mrs. Thrale) : 1817-1821

This six-volume edition has collected most of the hitherto unpublished letters (1784-1821) of Hester Lynch Piozzi to a large group of correspondents--friends, children, scholars, actresses, servants, lawyers, and business acquaintances. Presenting both sides of a correspondence in whole or in part, it reveals for the first time the epistolary range of an acute, observant woman, formerly recognized as a confidante and sounding board for Samuel Johnson. The letters in this volume record the years 1817 to 1821 as Hester Lynch Piozzi experienced them. Overshadowing the entire period was the serious illness and then the death of her husband Gabriel Piozzi, the Italian musician she married after they conducted a love affair that affronted her social peers and alienated her daughters from her first, loveless marriage. Her correspondence from 1817 to 1821 reads like extensions of her private journals and may be seen as affirmations of hope and ambition as well as declarations of frustration, grief, anger, and self-pity. She allows herself to be observed in her most personal and vulnerable state, but retains her independence of character.