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The ''Thraliana'' was a diary kept by Hester Thrale and is part of the genre known as table talk. Although the work began as Thrale's diary focused on her experience with her family, it slowly changed focus to emphasise various anecdotes and stories about the life of Samuel Johnson. The work was used as a basis for Thrale's ''Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson'', but the ''Thraliana'' remained unpublished until 1942. The anecdotes contained within the work were popular with Thrale's contemporaries but seen as vulgar. Among 20th century readers, the work was popular, and many literary critics believe that the work is a valuable contribution to the genre and for providing information about Johnson's and her own life. ==Background== Hester Thrale, when still Hester Lynch Salusbury, spent her youth writing letters and keeping journals. Her talents at writing won her the respect of her uncles, Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Salusbury, who later appointed her their heir.〔Bloom 1998 p. 74〕 When Thrale was older, she became close to Johnson. It was natural to her to keep a detailed collection of anecdotes and stories of their time together, as of everything she experienced.〔Balderston 1951 p. ix〕 The two initially bonded after Thrale gave birth to her first child, Queeney, in 1766.〔 However, there were problems between Thrale and Johnson, along with "his defenders" during his life and in criticism since then, over their "gradual estrangement" from each other after the death of her husband.〔 These problems were then heightened by her marriage to Gabriel Piozzi.〔 After Johnson's death, Thrale felt isolated because she believed that Johnson's previous friends along with the public as a whole did not accept her, and some went so far as to claim she abandoned Johnson in his final moments.〔Brownley 1985 p. 631〕 In particular, James Boswell, who resented Thrale and felt himself as her literary competitor, began to exploit the falling out between Thrale and Johnson's friends in order to promote his ''Life of Samuel Johnson''.〔 After the birth of Queeney, Thrale began to document the various moments in her daughter's life in a "baby book" called ''The Children's Book''. The work eventually expanded to include documentation of the whole family and was retitled the ''Family Book''.〔 To encourage his wife's writing her husband Henry Thrale gave her six blank diary books, with the title ''Thraliana'' on the cover, in 1776. The work was intended as an Ana,〔Balderston 1951 p. x〕 which she admits her fascination with in the ''Thraliana'': "I am grown quite mad after these French Anas; Anecdote is in itself so seducing".〔Thrale 1951 p. 463〕 After searching for English models for writing her Ana, she settled on used John Selden's ''Table Talk'', William Camden's ''Remains'', and Joseph Spence's ''Anecdotes'' as her guides. In May 1778, she was given by Johnson a manuscript of Spence's ''Anecdotes'', but her first years of the Ana were written without an exact model.〔Balderston 1951 p. xi〕 Before the ''Thraliana'', Thrale kept two sets of anecdotes: the first was devoted to Samuel Johnson and the other for miscellaneous events. She relied on these, along with her memory, to write the early portions of her work.〔Balderston 1951 p. xii〕 Boswell, when trying to find information for his own work, wrote: "Mr. Thrale told me, I am not sure what day, that there is a Book of ''Johnsoniana'' kept int heir Family, in which all Mr. Johnson's sayings and all that they can collect about him is put down ... I must try to get this ''Thralian'' Miscellany, to assist me in writing Mr. Johnson's Life, if Mrs. Thrale does not intend to do it herself."〔Boswell 1941 p. 200〕 After Johnson's death, Thrale used the ''Thraliana'' to create the ''Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson'' (1786).〔Bloom 1998 p. 75〕 The manuscript passed through many hands and was owned by A. Edward Newton until his death in autumn 1940. The ''Thraliana'' was eventually published in 1942, and it was produced by the Clarendon Press in England while its editor, Katharine Balderston, was prohibited from travelling across the ocean from Wellesley College because of World War II.〔Balderston 1951 p. vi〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thraliana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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