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Anecdotes Of The Late Samuel Johnson
The ''Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson'' or the ''Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. During the Last Twenty Years of His Life'' by Hester Thrale, also known as Hester Lynch Piozzi, was first published 26 March 1786. It was based on the various notes and anecdotes of Samuel Johnson that Thrale kept in her ''Thraliana''.Bloom 1998 p. 75 Thrale wrote the work in Italy while she lived there for three years after marrying Gabriel Piozzi. Background Before Thrale began to write the ''Thraliana'', she kept two sets of anecdotes: the first was devoted to Samuel Johnson and the other for miscellaneous events.Balderston 1951 p. xii She relied on these, along with her memory, to write the early portions of her work. After Johnson's death, Thrale decided to publish a series of anecdotes of Johnson's life based on the various notes and anecdotes, called Johnsoniana by her friends, that she incorporated into her ''Thraliana''.Bloom 1998 p. 75 She was eager to start publishing her wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hester Thrale
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (née Salusbury; later Piozzi; 27 January 1741 or 16 January 1740 – 2 May 1821),Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating years, recorded her birth as 16 January 1740. The provisions of the British Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, implemented in 1752, altered the official British dating method to the Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on 1 January (it had been 25 March). These changes resulted in dates being moved forward 11 days, and for those between 1 January and 25 March, an advance of one year. For further explanation, see: Old Style and New Style dates. a Welsh-born diarist, author and patron of the arts, is an important source on Samuel Johnson and 18th-century English life. She belonged to the prominent Salusbury family, Anglo-Welsh landowners, and married first a wealthy brewer, Henry Thrale, then a music teacher, Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Her '' Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous, anecdotes differ from jokes because their primary purpose is not simply to provoke laughter but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself. Anecdotes may be real or fictional; the anecdotal digression is a common feature of literary works and even oral anecdotes typically involve subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape designed to entertain the listener. An anecdote is always presented as the recounting of a real incident involving actual people and usually in an identifiable place. In the words of Jürgen Hein, they exhibit "a special realism" and "a claimed historical dimension" . Etymology and usage The word ''anecdote'' (in Greek: ἀνέκδοτον "unpublished", literally "not given out") comes from Procopius of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated ''The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue ''The History of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thraliana
The ''Thraliana'' was a diary kept by Hester Thrale and is part of the genre known as table talk. Although the work began as Thrale's diary focused on her experience with her family, it slowly changed focus to emphasise various anecdotes and stories about the life of Samuel Johnson. The work was used as a basis for Thrale's '' Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson'', but the ''Thraliana'' remained unpublished until 1942. The anecdotes contained within the work were popular with Thrale's contemporaries but seen as vulgar. Among 20th-century readers, the work was popular, and many literary critics believe that the work is a valuable contribution to the genre and for providing information about Johnson's and her own life. Background Hester Thrale, when still Hester Lynch Salusbury, spent her youth writing letters and keeping journals. Her talents at writing won her the respect of her uncles, Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Salusbury, who later appointed her their heir.Bloom 1998 p. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London, reviving the Gothic Revival, Gothic style some decades before his Victorian era, Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic fiction, Gothic novel, ''The Castle of Otranto'' (1764), and his ''Letters'', which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes. In 2017, a volume of Walpole's selected letters was published. The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford of the second creation on his nephew's death in 1791. Early life: 1717–1739 Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of Prime Minister ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmond Malone
Edmond Malone (4 October 174125 May 1812) was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare. Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first political and then more congenial literary pursuits. He went to London, where he frequented literary and artistic circles. He regularly visited Samuel Johnson and was of great assistance to James Boswell in revising and proofreading his ''Life'', four of the later editions of which he annotated. He was friendly with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and sat for a portrait now in the National Portrait Gallery. He was one of Reynolds' executors, and published a posthumous collection of his works (1798) with a memoir. Horace Walpole, Edmund Burke, George Canning, Oliver Goldsmith, Lord Charlemont, and, at first, George Steevens, were among Malone's friends. Encouraged by Charlemont and Steevens, he devoted himself to the study of Shakespearean chronolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katherine Balderston
Katherine Canby Balderston (January 2, 1895, Boise, Idaho – November 21, 1979, South Natick, Massachusetts) was an American scholar of 18th century English literature. A professor emerita at Wellesley College, she was a winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1941. Life Katherine Canby Balderston was born in Boise, Idaho, one of four children. Her father, William Balderston, was an editor of the Boise Statesman, while her mother Stella would become the Idaho State Librarian. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1916 with a bachelor's degree, Radcliffe College with a master's, and obtained her doctorate from Yale University. She was a member of the Wellesley basketball team at the time of her graduation. Balderston researched Oliver Goldsmith's life and letters, uncovering previously unknown details about his relations with his family, as well as the creation of his play ''She Stoops To Conquer'' in ''The Collected Letters of Oliver Goldsmith'', which she edited and publishe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1786 Non-fiction Books
Events January–March * January 3 – The third Treaty of Hopewell is signed, between the United States and the Choctaw. * January 6 – The outward bound East Indiaman '' Halsewell'' is wrecked on the south coast of England in a storm, with only 74 of more than 240 on board surviving. * February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies. * March 1 – The Ohio Company of Associates is organized by five businessmen at a meeting at the Bunch-of-Grapes Tavern in Boston, to purchase land from the United States government to form settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Ohio. * March 13 – Construction begins in Dublin on the Four Courts Building, with the first stone laid down by the United Kingdom's Viceroy for Ireland, the Duke of Rutland. April–June * April 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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