OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN THE COURSE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE, ITALY, AND GERMANY

Dublin, Ireland: Messrs. H. Chamberlaine, L. White, P. Byrne, P. Wogan, Grubier and M'Allister, T. Heery, B. Dornin, J. Moore, and W. Jones, 1789. First Dublin Edition. Leather-bound. Very Good. Octavo, 5 x 8.1 in., pp. vi + 592. Contemporary full calf with title on red panel and gilt double-bars to spine. Rubbing to extremities. 2 1/12 inch cut in leather to lower right corner. Leather has lifted off front board leaving a wrinkle in lower right quadrant. Leather chipped at top right corner; corners are peeping. Scuffing to rear board; chips to top and lower edges of rear board. Hinges repaired; crack in spine repaired, but visible. Interior unmarked and in very good condition. Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (née Salusbury; 27 January 1741 or 16 January 1740 - 2 May 1821), 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 (1786) and her diary Thraliana, published posthumously in 1942, are the main works for which she is remembered. She also wrote a popular history book and a dictionary. She has been seen as a protofeminist.
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"...The only daughter of an impoverished Welsh family, she received an excellent education "although Education was a Word then unknown, as applied to Females" (Thraliana). At the age of sixteen she could read and write fluently in French, Italian and Spanish, and began studying Hebrew at the age of seventy, clearly portraying her strong, life-long interest in different cultures and languages..."
Women Writers Database (Netherlands-based).