THE INTIMATE LETTERS OF HESTER
PIOZZI & PENELOPE PENNINGTON
1788-1821

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
AN ARTIST'S LOVE STORY

M^rs. Hester Lynch Piozzi.

Engraved by H. Meyer,

from an original Drawing by J. Jackson.

EDITED BY OSWALD G. KNAPP

WITH THIRTY ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN. MCMXIV

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO

MY WIFE

The letters included in this volume have been printed withoutalteration, except that some of Mrs. Piozzi's redundant initialcapitals have been suppressed, and that her somewhat erraticpunctuation has been, to a certain extent, systematised. Her spelling,save for the correction of obvious slips, which are very rare, has notbeen altered. The omitted passages, which have been indicated whereverthey occur, mainly consist of formal "compliments" at the beginningor end of letters, to which she was much addicted, unsavoury medicaldetails, or casual allusions to insignificant persons and trivialevents of no interest in themselves, and having no direct bearing onthe story of her life.

For the outline of her career before her second marriage I haveto acknowledge my indebtedness to previous writers, particularlyHayward and Mangin, and the more recent works of Mr. Seeley andMessrs. Broadley and Seccombe; not forgetting the indispensableDictionary of National Biography, for the identification of manypersons incidentally mentioned. I have also to express my thanks toMiss Thrale of Croydon for interesting information respecting herfamily; and above all to Mr. A. M. Broadley, not only for his generouspermission to make use of Mrs. Piozzi's unpublished Commonplace Book,now in[viii] his possession, but also for allowing me to draw freely uponhis unrivalled collection of prints, &c., relating to this period,from which the greater part of the illustrations has been taken.

Inwood, Parkstone,

July 1913.

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