Abstract
Hester Piozzi is best known for her friendship with Samuel Johnson, but she was also a dedicated annotator, who annotated at least one hundred books on a wide variety of subjects. In this chapter, the author argues that discrete bodies of annotation are part-way towards being, in themselves, works of criticism, and surveys the previously published accounts of Piozzi’s annotations on eleven individual books. Some of these accounts, in particular of her annotations on works by and about Johnson, are thorough transcriptions within editions of the annotated texts, others are essayistic studies which selectively quote her annotations. This study compares both her treatment of her texts, but also the means by which annotations may be studied and presented by scholars. Observing that every body of annotations helps us understand more about the practice, the chapter concludes with a thorough account of previous unpublished annotations by Piozzi to Johnson’s periodical essay series, The Rambler, and another such series to which he contributed, The Adventurer.