Critical Response
Horace Walpole quickly responded to the work in a letter 28 March 1786:
"Two days ago appeared Madame Piozzi's Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. I am lamentably disappointed - in her, I mean; not in him. I had conceived a favourable opinion of her capacity. But this new book is wretched; a high-varnished preface to a heap of rubbish, in a very vulgar style, and too void of method even for such a farrago."
On 30 April 1786 he followed with another:
"As she must have heard that the whole first impression was sold the first day, no doubt she expects, on her landing to be received like the Governor of Gibraltar, and to find the road strewed with branches of palm. She, and Boswell, and their Hero are the joke of the public."
Edmond Malone said, "On the whole the public is indebted to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful account of Dr. Johnson". James Clifford declared that the Anecdotes and the Thraliana "established her reputation as a bluestocking writer of the late eighteenth century". Martine Brownley claims that the Anecdotes "have long pleased Johnsonians", but her "lasting literary fame is due to her diaries and letters".
Read more about this topic: Anecdotes Of The Late Samuel Johnson
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