Hester Thrale on Dr Johnson: Anecdotes of the Late Dr Samuel Johnson by Hester Thrale-Piozzi (Provisional title) - Richard Holmes; Hester Thrale-Piozzi (Paperback) 0

"Holmes's Lives" is a series of classic English biographies, edited and introduced by Richard Holmes. In this series, Richard Holmes sets out to recover the great forgotten tradition of English biography writing and reaffirms the enduring excitement of classic non-fiction. This text presents a lively, short account of Johnson in domestic intimacy, written by the wife of his friend, Henry Thrale, the wealthy London brewer. After Henry died, Johnson was keen to marry Hester, but to his dismay, she married a racy Italian music master instead. The book was assembled from Hester Thrale's private collection of "Johnsoniana", while she was on honeymoon with her new husband in Italy. It is a woman's eye view of Johnson, psychologically acute, emphasising both his alarming eccentricity and human kindness. It shows considerable understanding of the stress of his literary work and his unhappy emotional life.