WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington, 1788-1821 cover

The Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington, 1788-1821

Chapter 2: PREFACE
By Hester Lynch Piozzi
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

BiographiesEssays, Letters & SpeechesHistory - British

About This Book

A collection of intimate letters between Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington that chronicles personal and social life over several decades, covering education, marriages, travel, family reconciliations and disputes, estate building and restoration, literary and theatrical friendships, responses to political events and public controversies, and later years including legal struggles, published writings, and social gatherings. The correspondence combines vivid social observation, domestic detail, and literary commentary, revealing shifting relationships, practical management of households and estates, and the authors' reactions to cultural and political upheavals, all presented in an epistolary narrative that traces evolving personal fortunes and networks.

MY WIFE

PREFACE

The letters included in this volume have been printed without alteration, except that some of Mrs. Piozzi's redundant initial capitals have been suppressed, and that her somewhat erratic punctuation has been, to a certain extent, systematised. Her spelling, save for the correction of obvious slips, which are very rare, has not been altered. The omitted passages, which have been indicated wherever they occur, mainly consist of formal "compliments" at the beginning or end of letters, to which she was much addicted, unsavoury medical details, or casual allusions to insignificant persons and trivial events of no interest in themselves, and having no direct bearing on the story of her life.

For the outline of her career before her second marriage I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to previous writers, particularly Hayward and Mangin, and the more recent works of Mr. Seeley and Messrs. Broadley and Seccombe; not forgetting the indispensable Dictionary of National Biography, for the identification of many persons incidentally mentioned. I have also to express my thanks to Miss Thrale of Croydon for interesting information respecting her family; and above all to Mr. A. M. Broadley, not only for his generous permission to make use of Mrs. Piozzi's unpublished Commonplace Book, now in his possession, but also for allowing me to draw freely upon his unrivalled collection of prints, &c., relating to this period, from which the greater part of the illustrations has been taken.

Inwood, Parkstone,

July 1913.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
Introductory—Mrs. Piozzi and the blue-stockings—Penelope Weston—The Salusbury family—Early years and education—Marriage to Thrale, 1763—Widowhood—Marriage to Piozzi, 1784—Foreign travel—Return to England, 1788 1
CHAPTER II
The Piozzis in Hanover Square—Scotch tour, 1789—Visit to Wales—Return to Streatham Park, 1790—Harriet Lee's romance—Nuneham and Mrs. Siddons, 1791—French Revolution—Cecilia's admirers—Apprehensions for Cecilia—The September massacres—Miss Weston's engagement 18
CHAPTER III
Miss Weston marries Wm. Pennington, 1792—Execution of Louis XVI—Reconciliation of Mrs. Piozzi and her daughters, 1793—Irish Rebellion—British Synonymy—Fleming's prophecies—Cecilia's flirtations—Residence at Denbigh, 1794—Building of Brynbella 73
CHAPTER IV
Cecilia's engagement and marriage to Mostyn, 1795—Her dangerous illness—Friction with the Mostyns—Disturbances in Italy and Ireland—Death of Maria Siddons—Visit to Bath, 1798 121
CHAPTER V
Adoption of John Salusbury Piozzi—The Canterbury Tales—Bath Riots, 1800—Chancery suit with Miss Thrale—Bach-y-graig restored—Retrospection published, 1801—The Blagdon controversy—Political epigram 169
CHAPTER VI
Attacks by reviewers—The Peace, 1801—Visit to London—South Wales—Mrs. Pennington's troubles—Bath again—Breach with Mrs. Pennington, 1804 218
CHAPTER VII
Renewal of friendship, 1819—Weston-super-Mare—W. A. Conway—Birthday fête, 1820—Conway's love affair—Penzance—The Queen's trial—More law—Land's End—Return to Clifton and death, 1821—Mrs. Pennington's obituary notice—Her relations with the daughters and the executors—Epitaph 270