Hester Thrale
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Hester Lynch Thrale (born Hester Lynch Salusbury and after her second marriage, Hester Lynch Piozzi ) (16 January 1741 - May 2, 1821) (although she celebrated her own birthday on 27 January, which was 16 January O.S.) was a British diarist, author, and patron of the arts. Her diaries and correspondence are also an important source of information about Samuel Johnson.
She was born Hester Lynch Salusbury at Bodvel Hall, Caernarvonshire, Wales. As a member of the powerful Salusbury Family, she belonged to one of the most illustrious Welsh land-owning dynasties of the Georgian era. She was a direct descendant of Katheryn of Berain.
She married the rich brewer Henry Thrale on 11 October 1763, at St. Anne's Chapel, Soho, London. They had 12 children and lived at Streatham Park.
This was her entry to London society, as a result of which she met Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Bishop Thomas Percy, Oliver Goldsmith and other literary figures, including the young Frances Burney, whom she took with her to Bath. (There is some evidence that she was jealous of the attention given to the youthful novelist.) Johnson visited Wales in Hester Thrale's company on several occasions. In 1775 he wrote verse in celebration of her 35th birthday, and the same year wrote Latin verse in her honour.
Following her husband's death in 1780, she married Gabriel Mario Piozzi, an Italian music teacher. This caused a rift with Samuel Johnson which was only mended shortly before his death. It also earned her the disapproval of Frances Burney (who would herself go on to make a similarly "unsuitable" match). With her second husband, she retired to Brynbella, a specially-built country house on her Bach y graig estate, in the Vale of Clwyd, south of - and close to - Tremeirchion village in north Wales.
In 1786, she published Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, and in 1788 she published her letters with Johnson. These two sources, together with her unpublished diaries, are often referred to as Thraliana by scholars, and they serve as a notable correction to the picture of Johnson presented by Boswell. Further, since Johnson all but lived in the Thrale household, Thrale provides exact details of when and how Johnson composed some of his great works.
She died in at Royal York Crescent, Clifton, Bristol. She was buried on 16 May 1821 near Brynbella in the churchyard of Corpus Christi Church, Tremeirchion. A plaque inside the church is inscribed "Dr. Johnson's Mrs. Thrale. Witty, Vivacious and Charming, in an age of Genius She held ever a foremost Place".
From the time of her death to nearly the present, she was referred to by scholars as Johnson had referred to her: as "Mrs. Thrale" or "Hester Thrale." However, she is now most commonly referred to as either "Hester Lynch Piozzi" or "Mrs. Piozzi."
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[edit] References
- Prose, Francine. The lives of the muses. New York: Harper Collins, 2002. 29-56.
[edit] See Also
[edit] Works
- Thraliana
- Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson
- The Three Warnings
- Retrospection
- Other Hester Thrale etexts
- Works by Hester Thrale at Project Gutenberg
