Works

Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life was written by Hester Lynch Piozzi in Florence during the month of October 1785 and published in London on 25 March 1786. Written at extraordinary speed in October 1785 and published in London on 25 March 1786. The book’s rapid appearance placed Mrs. Piozzi in direct rivalry with James Boswell, whose much longer Life of Samuel Johnson was still five years from publication.

Your Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson my dear Madam are very different to Mr. Boswells. Yours do honour to the subject, the Writer & harm to no one.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu

Though occasionally less precise in chronology and documentation than Boswell’s later biography, Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes remain invaluable for their intimate, affectionate portrait of Johnson’s domestic character, conversation, and private habits—details she alone, as a member of his household for nearly twenty years, was positioned to record.